Can You Keep a Secret?

Romance · Comedy

First published: 2003
Print length: 374 pagesDell, 2006

Description

Emma Corrigan has an ambitious corporate job, a stable but uninspiring relationship, and a private collection of embarrassments she carefully keeps from everyone around her. During a turbulent flight, convinced disaster may be imminent, she pours those secrets out to the stranger beside her. Safely back in London, Emma expects never to see him again—until he walks into her workplace and is revealed as the company’s founder. Every harmless confession now carries professional and personal consequences, while his knowledge makes it harder for her to maintain the life she claims to want. The romantic comedy turns accidental honesty into sustained pressure, testing the difference between Emma’s polished public self and her unspoken desire for change.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Conversational · Dialogue-driven · Witty

Pace

Brisk

Tone

Humorous · Romantic · Tense · Warm

Structure

Linear

Focus

Character · Plot · Relationships

Emotional intensity

3 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 2 / 5
Ideas: 2 / 5
Structure: 2 / 5
Background knowledge: 1 / 5

Themes

IdentityLoveTransformationWork

About Sophie Kinsella

Sophie Kinsella was an English novelist best known for the Shopaholic series, whose success brought her comic fiction an unusually wide international readership. Across the series and standalones such as Can You Keep a Secret?, The Undomestic Goddess, I’ve Got Your Number, and My Not So Perfect Life, she returned to women negotiating work, money, romance, and the gap between a polished public image and a less manageable private life. Her protagonists often meet embarrassment or sudden disorder with elaborate improvisation, allowing social comedy to carry the plot while exposing their anxieties and self-deceptions. Kinsella’s characteristic intimacy comes from conversational, often first-person narration, rhetorical questions, and parenthetical asides that make thought appear immediate. Humor and irony remain central, while changes in typography help emails and text messages function as part of the storytelling. The result is a body of romantic comedy distinguished by quick narrative access, comic escalation, and close attention to the pressures of contemporary professional and consumer life.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Dell
Language: English
ISBN: 9780440241904

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