Female lead character gets the sack and turns to an agency to help her find a new job; ends up at zoo. Has to take care of vicious donkey (I think at petting zoo) and subsequently falls for oddball and fellow warden, caretaker for the penguins. There is a ‘Princess Leia Doll’ subplot, in which protagonist realizes she only ever started her job at office-setting to stick it to fellow graduate who mutilated her doll when they were children. Happily the oddball zookeeper is also a collector of star wars dolls.
Probably british author, was baught in ireland in 1999 or 1998 and, of course, lost.

It is not a book by sophie kinsella, m. keyes, c. ahern, fforde, j. mansell, r. sisman. I have been searching for the last couple of days without any luck and hope you can help me (because this is driving me crazy). Thank you very much in advance!