Sophie Kinsella - Shopaholic Abroad (2001) also published as Shopaholic Takes Manhattan (2002)

She's back. She's stateside. And she's shopping! SHOPAHOLIC TAKES MANHATTAN finds everyone's favorite credit card-toting Brit -- Becky Bloomwood -- stuffing her bags full of hip duds (although she would probably never use the word "duds") for a trip to the Big Apple ... a trip that could cement her relationship with hunky Luke Brandon and result in a lucrative (read: more spending power) television career in America. It's all too good to be true. What to pack? What NOT to pack? Oh, but there's still that little matter of a pesky old shopping habit that jumped the Atlantic with Becky. The same humorous excuses to shop that made Becky such a funny character to begin with exist on both sides of the big puddle. About shopping abroads she blithely says, "foreign money doesn't count, so you can spend as much as you like." About shopping instead of museum hopping she happily discovers, "you can come here (the Museum shop) and buy loads of stuff -- and no one minds whether you've been to the museum or not?" About Prada shoes vs sightseers she asks incredulously: "Do they not have eyes in their heads? ... This is Fifth Avenue? ... And everywhere I look there are fabulous shops ... And we're just walking straight past Armani Exchange and no one's even pausing... What is wrong with these people?" As in CONFESSIONS OF A SHOPAHOLIC, the windows of Hermes, Chanel and Gucci call, and they are the great undoing of Sophie Kinsella's so-called financial advisor. Suddenly the endearing Becky finds herself the subject of a scandal that undermines her career credibility, and at risk of losing face and losing Luke. Just when she has started to discover the thrills and luxuries of Manhattan! But fear not, Becky prevails. (Phew!) And at book's end she has a new line of credit in hand. Just in time to go shopping in installment number three, SHOPAHOLIC TIES THE KNOT.