Northanger Abbey

Jane Austen in the hands of queen of crime, Val McDermid. Get ready for a very different Northanger Abbey.

Seventeen-year-old Catherine ‘Cat’ Morland has led a sheltered existence in rural Dorset, a life entirely bereft of the romance and excitement for which she yearns. So when Cat’s wealthy neighbours, the Allens, invite her to Edinburgh Festival, she is sure adventure beckons.

Edinburgh initially offers no such thrills: Susie Allen is obsessed by shopping, Andrew Allen by the Fringe. A Highland Dance class, though, brings Cat a new acquaintance: Henry Tilney, a pale, dark-eyed gentleman whose family home, Northanger Abbey, sounds perfectly thrilling. And an introduction to Bella Thorpe, who shares her passion for supernatural novels, provides Cat with a like-minded friend. But with Bella comes her brother John, an obnoxious banker whose vulgar behaviour seems designed to thwart Cat’s growing fondness for Henry.

Happily, rescue is at hand. The rigidly formal General Tilney invites her to stay at Northanger with son Henry and daughter Eleanor. Cat’s imagination runs riot: an ancient abbey, crumbling turrets, secret chambers, ghosts…and Henry! What could be more deliciously romantic?

But Cat gets far more than she bargained for in this isolated corner of the Scottish Borders. The real world outside the pages of a novel proves to be altogether more disturbing than the imagined world within…

Reviews

Praise for Northanger Abbey:

'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'
J.K. ROWLING

‘Brilliant… I was utterly charmed by this newfangled Austen and look forward eagerly to Alexander McCall Smith’s Emma’
John Sutherland, Financial Times

‘Funny and brilliantly written’ Jenny Colgan, Guardian

‘Northanger Abbey is funny, clever, subversive and Scottish. No bonnets – all brio’
JEANETTE WINTERSON

‘I picked up Northanger Abbey one evening and didn’t stop reading until I’d finished it. It’s an exquisitely realised tale of the uncertainty and brutality of teenage years told with the lightness of touch and humour that Val is famous for. Utter brilliance from McDermid’ SUSAN CALMAN

‘McDermid’s reworking of the original novel is intelligent, amusing and well-written… captures beautifully how it feels to be a teenager… McDermid is a subtle and witty writer and it’s hard to imagine a better evocation of the spirit of the original’ THE TIMES

‘A fun rendering… McDermid’s Abbey, with its passageways and dark corners, is fantastic, and this novel is a lark’ SUNDAY TIMES

‘McDermid’s great virtue is to have made Austen’s characters seem fresh in the way they would have been for her first readers… I can imagine Jane herself applauding.’ SUNDAY EXPRESS

‘note perfect… breezy, vital, inventive… Her obvious pleasure in the task is as contagious as Austen’s wit.’ THE SCOTSMAN

Praise for The Austen Project:

‘The Austen Project is a breathtaking tribute to Jane Austen. I can’t wait to read the other five “updates” while being reminded to reread, joyfully, the originals’ Washington Post