Shopaholic & Baby: A Novel (U)

Becky Brandon (née Bloomwood) is pregnant! She couldn t be more overjoyed especially since discovering that shopping cures morning sickness. Everything has got to be perfect for her baby from the designer nursery . . . to the latest, coolest pram . . . to the celebrity, must-have obstetrician.But when the celebrity obstetrician turns out to be her husband Luke s glamorous, intellectual ex-girlfriend, Becky's perfect world starts to crumble. She s shopping for two . . . but are there three in her marriage?Publishers WeeklyHail the return of Kinsella's airhead heroine, Becky Bloomwood, now married, pregnant and working as the head personal shopper for a brand-new London boutique. In this latest installment of the Shopaholic franchise (Shopaholic Ties the Knot; Shopaholic Takes Manhattan; etc.), the commercially insatiable Bex shops for two in every upscale baby shop and catalogue in London, snags a celebrity ob/gyn and leverages a pair of the moment's "most coveted" boots to negotiate a home purchase. Complicating an otherwise uneventful pregnancy, Becky suspects her husband, PR biz-wiz Luke Brandon, is having an affair with her hot doc (who also happens to be Luke's ex-girlfriend), so she hires a gumshoe with predictable madcap results. For chick lit lovers with babies of their own, or for those who covet one, Kinsella mines a rich vein by tweaking 21st-century glossy mag obsessions: from sonograms to the hottest baby strollers to tricked-out birthing rooms. Kinsella's ode to baby blues is both sly and slapstick-and for now, at least, Becky is more lovably Lucille Ball than annoyingly Paris Hilton. (Mar.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.