Shopaholic & Sister

Présentation de l'éditeur What’s a round-the-world honeymoon if you can’t buy the odd souvenir to ship back home? Like the twenty silk dressing gowns Becky found in Hong Kong…the hand-carved dining table (and ten chairs) from Sri Lanka…the, um, huge wooden giraffes from Malawi (that her husband Luke expressly forbade her to buy)… Only now Becky and Luke have returned home to London and Luke is furious. Two truckloads of those souvenirs have cluttered up their loft, and the bills for them are outrageous. Luke insists Becky go on a budget. And worse: her beloved best friend Suze has found a new best friend while Becky was away. Becky’s feeling rather blue—when her parents deliver some incredible news. She has a long-lost sister! Becky is thrilled! She’s convinced her sister will be a true soulmate. They’ll go shopping together, have manicures together.…Until she meets Jessica for the first time and gets the shock of her life. Surely Becky Bloomwood’s sister can’t…hate shopping? Sophie Kinsella is a former financial journalist and the author of the bestselling novels Confessions of a Shopaholic, Shopaholic Takes Manhattan, Shopaholic Ties the Knot, Can You Keep a Secret?,and The Undomestic Goddess. She lives in England, where she is at work on her next book. Extrait Chapter One OK. I CAN do this. No problem.It’s simply a matter of letting my higher self take over, achieving enlightenment, and becoming a radiant being of white light.Easy-peasy.Surreptitiously I adjust myself on my yoga mat so I’m facing the sun directly, and push down the spaghetti straps of my top. I don’t see why you can’t reach ultimate-bliss consciousness and get an even tan at the same time.I’m sitting on a hillside in the middle of Sri Lanka at the Blue Hills Resort and Spiritual Retreat, and the view is spectacular. Hills and tea plantations stretch ahead, then merge into a deep blue sky. I can see the bright colors of tea pickers in the fields, and if I swivel my head a little, I can glimpse a distant elephant padding slowly along between the bushes.And when I turn my head still further, I can see Luke. My husband. He’s the one on the blue yoga mat, in the cutoff linen trousers and tatty old top, sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed.I know. It’s just unbelievable. After ten months of honeymoon, Luke has turned into a totally different person from the man I married. The old corporate Luke has vanished. The suits have disappeared. He’s tanned and lean, his hair is long and sun-bleached, and he’s still got a few of the little plaits he had put in on Bondi Beach. Round his wrist is a beaded bracelet he got in Tanzania, and in his ear is a tiny silver hoop.Luke Brandon with an earring! Luke Brandon sitting cross-legged!As though he can feel my gaze, he opens his eyes and smiles, and I beam back happily. Ten months married. And not a single row.Well. You know. Only the odd little one.“Siddhasana,” says our yoga teacher, Chandra. He’s a tall, thin man in baggy white yoga trousers, and he always speaks in a soft, patient voice. “Clear your minds of all extraneous thought.”Around me I’m aware of the eight or nine others in the group moving into position on their mats. Obediently I place my right foot on my left thigh.OK. Clear my mind. Concentrate.I don’t want to boast, but I find clearing my mind pretty easy. I don’t quite get why anyone would find it difficult! I mean, not thinking has to be a lot easier than thinking, doesn’t it?In fact, the truth is, I’m a bit of a natural at yoga. We’ve only been on this retreat for five days but already I can do the Lotus and everything! I was even thinking I might set up as a yoga teacher when we go back home.Maybe I could set up a partnership with Trudie Styler, I think in sudden excitement. God, yes! And we could launch a range of yoga wear, too, all soft grays and whites, with a little logo—“Focus on your breathing,” Chandra is saying.Oh, right. Yes. Breathing.Breathe in . . . breathe out. Breathe in .