1 The human race is divided into two kinds of people: those who can keep a secret and those who cannot. Our heroine, Emma Corrigan, belongs to the latter category. On a flight from Scotland to London, when turbulence causes the aircraft to shudder and lurch, Emma grasps the hand of the perfect stranger seated next to her and proceeds to spill all her secrets—from her G-string to her G-spot. She even tells him that her boyfriend, Connor Martin, looks like a blonde Ken doll, that she secretly feeds her colleague's plant orange juice to make it sick, and that she loathes Kerry, the orphaned cousin who was raised as a sister and whose Midas touch has made her the apple of Emma's parents' eye.

2 As an ironic fate (with the initials SK) would have it, the stranger turns out to be the owner of the company for which she works. Currently serving as general dogsbody, Emma aspires to become a marketing executive for Panther Products—whose slogan is "Don't Pause"—as soon as she learns the meaning of the term "multi-logistical," that is. Her boss, it turns out, is good at keeping his own secrets but not so good at keeping hers. Emma has just pulled off her first marketing coup for Panther. Adamant that she is ready to become an executive, she has just had her first trial run at a meeting with Glen Oil in Edinburgh, where she is allowed to fill in at the last minute. Discovering that Glen Oil is about to sever its ties to Panther, Emma is inspired to deliver an impromptu encomium. Striding about, waving a can of Panther Cola, she has climaxed her peptalk by tearing open the tab and drenching Glen Oil's director's white shirt with purple pop. Following this life-altering journey, Emma is about to move in with Connor, when his mother's gift of a glass teapot catalyzes her epiphanic realization that she has changed ineffably and can no longer cohabit with him or continue their relationship. Believing she has a new man friend, Connor suspects every possible contender but the true one.

3 Emma's gormless behavior is complemented by that of her roommates: her best friend, Lissy, is a lawyer who specializes in defending fraudsters. Jemima, a Sloane Ranger parody possessed of a terrifying Mummy with some peculiar strategies for getting a rock on one's finger, has a closet full of Prada shoes and Gucci bags that she forbids her roommates to borrow. To ensure that they do not, she places sticky tape across the doors. Needless to say, both Emma—who buys her designer labels from Oxfam—and Lissy become expert at removing and replacing sticky tape. High points of the plot include Emma's family's appearance—Mum, Dad, Kerry, and husband Nev—at Panther's family day picnic and Lissy's participation in a dance spectacle by lawyers who combine performing pliéés with debating precedents.

4 This particular brand of chick-lit is color-coded with a pink dust jacket. So lucrative has this sub-genre become, that companies have taken to financing the authors for endorsing their brands in their protagonists' closets, and stores have started advertising the novels that mention their branches. Fiction as advertising is becoming an intriguing new mode. Sophie Kinsella's popular success, Confessions of a Shopoholic, has been closely followed by Shopoholic Takes Manhattan and Shopoholic Ties the Knot. Can You Keep a Secret? is certain to follow suit. The plot of Can You Keep a Secret? is, not surprisingly, quite predictable, but it does have some ingenious twists. But I can keep a secret.