She tells the official, “I don’t normally end up crying about jobs. I’m not like an actual lunatic. Hah! But I loved him and he loved me. And then he … Well, he chose to end his life. So this is sort of my attempt to start things over.”

Anyone who has passed through United States immigration will know that officials rarely entertain sob stories or offer tissues to women crying about their exes, but this is chick lit and unburdened with such realities. Although publishers have gone off the term “chick lit” (Penguin Random House categorises Still Me as a “romance novel” and “contemporary romance”), Louisa’s tale has much in common with that of the original darling of the genre, Bridget Jones.

The story picks up when we get an insight into the complicated marriage of Leonard and Agnes Gopnik. Louisa has been employed to work as Agnes’ personal assistant – or, as Agnes says on day one, as her friend and ally. And Agnes needs all the friends she can get; as the second wife of uber-wealthy Leonard, she has very few.

Agnes. a masseuse, had met Leonard while he was married to his first wife. Ouch! Little wonder the ex-wife, his daughter and the New York ladies who lunch all take an instant dislike to Agnes.

The Gopniks live in a grand apartment on the Upper East Side overlooking Central Park and have the lifestyle to match. For Agnes, that means endless charity lunches and functions, and fretting about whether she looks the part. It’s a glamorous but vacuous existence and Agnes’ unhappiness puts pressure on her marriage.

Louisa, meanwhile, has her own relation­ship problems: her hunky boyfriend back home has a saucy new ambulance partner, Katie, and Louisa begins stalking the flirta­tious blonde on Facebook. Her dilemma will be familiar to anyone who has negotiated a long-distance relationship.

In one of many emails she writes to Sam, Louisa explains, “It’s hard being so far apart and not knowing what’s going on in your life. When we meet it’s like the volume is turned up too high on everything. We just can’t relax with each other.”

There is humour in the book, but it’s largely predict­able. Louisa gets herself into many a sticky situation and then laughs her way out of it – the familiar romcom sketch. Indeed, this book reads as though it has its eye on the big screen.

Louisa’s love affair with New York centres on the big city sights – Brooklyn Bridge, Fifth Avenue, Central Park – and makes numerous movie refer­ences, with nods to Woody Allen and the like. Remarkably, Louisa adapts quickly to her new life and within a few months can put two fingers in her mouth and hail a cab with a loud whistle. Do people still finger-whistle New York taxis (outside of the movies, that is)?

But amid the light – er, fluffy – scenes and the long girlie letters and emails to friends and family, there are some inter­esting insights into women, relationships and the lives of the rich. Observing the icy reception that Agnes receives from New York socialites, Louisa considers the “infinitely subtle weaponry women use against each other”. And seeing the doorman out of uniform for the first time, she observes “how easy it is for the rich to know nothing about us when we aren’t dressed as individuals”.

If you judged this book by its cover, you wouldn’t think it was chick lit (the British edition has the title and author’s name in black and yellow against a white back­ground while the US edition features a line drawing of the Chrysler Building on a blue background). But make no mistake – this is still chick lit.

If you have read and enjoyed the first two books, you will probably appreciate Louisa’s adventures in New York. And if you prefer your novels light and breezy, with endings neatly wrapped up with a bow, this is for you. Otherwise, Still Me is unlikely to shake your world.