The Secret Shopper Affair

by Kate Harrison

Published 17 March 2011

Who said that sex was better than shopping?

Best mates Sandie, Emily and Grazia thought they'd be friends forever, but they reckoned without the dividing effects of men and money...

Shopping guru Sandie is on a roll, with a baby on the way and Toby, her posh totty partner, proposing every five minutes. But when she realises the legendary Garnett's Department Store is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, she knows she's the only one to save it, even though Toby's mother seems determined to scupper the rescue bid.

For Emily, Sandie's apparently perfect life is a bitter pill to swallow, especially as Emily's been banned from having a second child by her boyfriend, Will, who is more interested in saving the planet than her. As the rifts grow, will she learn to stand on her own two feet, or give in to a new temptation?

Glamorous Grazia tries to play peace-maker but she's facing her own big decision: whether to develop her new career as an erotic embroidery artist... or give up on her talent for the sake of her new, needy lover?

Can the magic of retail bring the secret shoppers back together, or is it time to shut up shop for good?


The Secret Shopper Unwrapped

by Kate Harrison

Published 1 October 2009
Christmas is coming, and while the bells are ringing, the tills aren't. But Sandie - the rising star of the retail spying world - is busier than ever, rooting out the best and worst in festive customer care through her company. The former Charlie's Shopping Angels are helping out, too. Glamorous widow Grazia is going undercover under the duvet at boutique hotels, in between dating a succession of toyboys and trying to remember which lie she's told about her age. Meanwhile, not-quite-yummy mummy Emily investigates the child-friendliness of the high street with the help of three-year-old Freddie, when she's not working flat out with her partner to save their fledging village shop from the un-festive credit crunch. The shoppers are back, but is the happiness they've worked so hard for, about to disappear faster than a Louis Vuitton handbag in the Harrod's sale?

Imagine shopping for a living, going undercover in the lingerie department, homing in on size-zero haute couture . . . and shopping the shop girls who think service is a dirty word. Welcome to the world of the Secret Shopper.

New mum Emily wants revenge on the stick-thin assistants who laugh at her post-baby tummy and post-baby budget. But frumpiness has its advantages when you're wielding a secret camera - and sending the damning footage straight to head office.

Store manager Sandie has a lifelong love of the world of retail - the glitz, the glamour, the stockroom. Then she's fitted up by an ambitious assistant and secret shopping is the only way to keep her one passion alive.

Glamorous widow Grazia can't leave behind the high life, despite her chronically low bank balance. The more she's buying - and spying - the less time she has to mourn her husband or her fair-weather friends who've dumped her.

They're Charlie's Shopping Angels, controlled by a mysterious figure who sends them assignments. But when they're sent to stitch up a doomed shop owned by Will, the angels begin to feel divided loyalties . . .