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When you read this book, you will realise that it is no coincidence that Sophie Kinsella is one of the best selling chick-lit novelists around today.

Her books are instantly accessible, her heroines are easy to identify with and her style is chatty and occasionally very funny. And 'Can You Keep A Secret?' is no exception. Indeed, in many ways it is more solidly written than the Shopaholic books which made her name. High-minded critics often sneer down their noses at books like this, and usually ignore them altogether. This sort of snobby attitude annoys the pants off me, it really does. The idea that a book has to be somehow 'difficult' or 'dark' or set in a seventeenth-century lighthouse to be valid is absolutely ridiculous.

The truth is, as Jenny Colgan explains in her interview on this site, it is just as challenging to write a good commercial novel as it is to write a good literary one. Sophie Kinsella may have a deceptively simple style, but there is real emotional intelligence behind her writing.

The story centres around the misfortunes of marketing girl Emma, who blurts out all her secrets to a mystery handsome stranger on a plane. And this being pure chick-lit, the mystery handsome stranger turns out not to be such a stranger after all . . .

It's easy-going, it's sometimes a tad predictable, and it's on familiar chick-lit territory - but Sophie Kinsella's breezy style means it's never dull for a second. Fun, escapist, headache-free entertainment.