A modern re-imagining of the Gothic Classic Northanger Abbey by the bestselling crime author Val McDermid. The second book in The Austen Project. In Val's trademark style of great storytelling and suspense meet modern day Cat whose world is turned upside down and her innocence lost as she is taken from rural Dorset to experience the bright lights of Edinburgh and the festival. Seamless prose complementing dialogue that's speckled with wit, it is clear that Val McDermid clearly relished the writing of this contemporary and page-turning take on Northanger Abbey.
This is the second novel in 'The Austen Project', following hot on the heels of Joanna Trollope's Sense & Sensibility, and will be followed by Alexander McCall Smith's Emma in Autumn 2014 and Curtis Sittenfeld's Pride & Prejudice in Autumn 2015.
A message from Val McDermid:
'Being a writer is about embracing challenges. Northanger Abbey is the least read and the least well-known of Jane Austen's novels. But only because our reading interests have changed and we don't get the joke that underpins the book. the challenge for me was to make this reworking come alive, with a sprinkling of wit and a dash of dramatic suspense.'
An ordinary girl in search of an extraordinary life: one of the world's premier thriller writers reimagines Jane Austen's classic as a contemporary gothic adventure, to universal acclaimCat Morland is ready to grow up. A home-schooled minister's daughter in the quaint, sheltered Piddle Valley in Dorset, she loses herself in novels and is sure there is a glamorous adventure awaiting her beyond the valley's narrow horizon. So imagine her delight when the Allens, neighbours and friends of her parents, invite her to attend the Edinburgh Festival as their guest.Armed with a sunny personality, show tickets every night and a few key wardrobe additions, Cat begins to take Edinburgh by storm and is welcomed into the bosom of the Thorpe family, particularly by eldest daughter Bella. And then there's the handsome Henry Tilney, an up-and-coming lawyer whose family home is the beautiful and forbidding Northanger Abbey. Cat is entranced by Henry and his charming sister Eleanor, but she can't help wondering if everything about them is as perfect as it seems. Or has she just been reading too many novels?A delectable, note-perfect modern update of the Jane Austen classic, Northanger Abbey tells a timeless story of innocence amid cynicism, the exquisite angst of young love, and the value of friendship."e;Val McDermid's brilliant re-working of Jane Austen's original shows that innocent, bookish girls in thrall to the supernatural have changed surprisingly little in two centuries. Witty and shrewd, full of romance and skulduggery - I loved it."e; -J.K. Rowling
