Top 10 British Writers of Chick Lit Books
The Best UK Authors of Novels in the Chick Lit Genre
Mar 8, 2009
Bridget Jones' started it all, and the best chick lit still comes from the UK: humorous, self-depreciating, sexy and surprisingly true-to-life.
Chick Lit is a sub genre of “female fiction”, written for and concerning itself with issues of modern women, usually young, working, single and in search of The Right Man. Romance is an important part of the genre, as is a light-hearted tone, though more serious issues are also often dabbled in.
The writers below create consistently the best and most popular books in the genre and each of them can be relied on delivering an entertaining, competently written novels to their core audience.
- Helen Fielding is one of the mothers of the genre, and her Bridget Jones' Diary is unmissable. A clever pastiche of Pride and Prejudice, written as a diary of a rather shallow and very fallible character.
- Sophie Kinsella is the author of the Shopaholic series, whose enduring appeal is undoubtedly down to the bimbo-with-a-heart-of-gold character of Becky Bloomwood. Well written and mixing slick glamour, down to earth realism and social comedy, the books are phenomenally successful and hard to beat as extremely readable, quick-read entertainment.
- Jenny Colgan stormed the chick lit scene with a delicious tale of feelings of class inferiority and a conspiracy against a bride from hell in Amanda's Wedding; and perhaps rarely bettered herslef in her later works, though Working Wonders was original, funny and magical. Her heroines are flesh and blood real, drink, smoke and engage in dodgy sex; all with a very British self-deprecatory humour.
- Wendy Holden started in gossip journalism and moved on to pen a series of very frothy society comedies with sad-but-funny heroines and appealingly nasty hate figures: Jilly Cooper meets pun-heavy journalism meets Oscar Wilde. Simply Divine is the first and the best, but Bad Heir Day deserves a mention too.
- Irish ex-pat Marian Keyes is beloved for her long (660 pages plus) tales of often seriously dysfunctional heroines desperate for a man. There is usually some “message” there and the writing can border on awful, but the sheer size of those books allows fans to wallow them for a whole weekend of fun. Rachel's Holiday draws on Keyes' own experience of addiction and rehab.
- Serena Mackesy has recently moved towards Gothic novel, but her debut The Temp is one of the best written, funniest, touching and for the most time amazingly true to life chick lit books ever published. A must.
- Carole Matthews writes sexy romantic comedies, and not all of them about single Londoners desperate for a man. More to Life Then This is a surprisingly grown up tale of two affairs.
- Anna Maxted is very, very popular despite a rather wooden pen, possibly due to Keyes-like mixture of humour and so-called issues. Getting Over It deals with bereavment, Behaving Like Adults with date rape.
- Melissa Nathan's first books offered another modern take on Jane Austin's novels. But it's in her later ones (notably Nanny) that she excels. Her heroines are usually intelligent and witty and don't necessarily pine for a Mr Right.
- Freya North writes raunchy chick lit with strong female characters and a lot of sex occasionally bordering on soft-core. Fen is a delicious tale of split loyalties set in the world of art.
Female readers who wish to broaden their genre spectrum might also wish to check
Top 10 Science-Fiction for the Female Reader.
The copyright of the article Top 10 British Writers of Chick Lit Books in Modern British Fiction is owned by Magdalena Healey. Permission to republish Top 10 British Writers of Chick Lit Books in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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