Northanger Abbey
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2.9 • 15 Ratings
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- £4.49
Publisher Description
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
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
As the author of grisly crime thrillers, Scottish author Val McDermid may seem an odd choice to participate in the Austen Project, a series of modern “remakes” of the beloved author’s novels. But McDermid clearly had a whale of a time writing this lighthearted and hilarious story about “Cat” Moreland, a dreamy underachiever who loves the Twilight books and accompanies her snobbish neighbour (a former actress) to the Edinburgh Festival. Like the original, this Northanger Abbey playfully explores the gap between notions of romance and real-life love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Scottish crime writer McDermid (Cross and Burn) adeptly reworks Jane Austen's Gothic satire for the modern audiences. A homeschooled minister's daughter bored by the "narrow confines" of the Dorset countryside and her "deeply average and desperately dull" family, Cat is given her break when her neighbors invite her as their guest to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. There, Cat befriends the needy Bella Thorpe who fancies Cat's brother and meets the captivating Henry Tilney, with his "heroic" face and "luxuriant honey-blond hair." Drama ensues. "When she looked back on that first meeting, Cat would wonder whether she should have been more wary of a man who began their acquaintance with such a blatant lie. For there was nothing gentle about what followed." As Cat gets acquainted with Eleanor, Henry's sister, she secures an invitation to their family home, the enchanting Northanger Abbey, a mansion of possible secrets that stirs the darkest recesses of Cat's overworked imagination. Following Austen's storyline but diverging in distinctive ways of her own, McDermid captures the naivete of the protagonist of Austen's prose, though at times her teenage characters come off as contrived in their language and behavior. Rife with conflicts of love, gossip, misunderstandings, and updates on social media, it is an accessible and enjoyable read, especially rewarding for young readers as a gateway into appreciating the classics.
Customer Reviews
Don't expect too much!
I agree to a certain extent with the first review as regards the fact that the book leads the reader unfairly along as regards the brooding mystery that hints all the way through this book; but if you bare in mind not to take much stock in the hints you can have a nice mills and boons type read between Cat and Henry. I love Edinburgh and enjoyed the fact that the author made it the main setting, so don't expect too much of the Abbey itself. If you get this book because of the vampire hints then don't read it. But for hard core romantics it's worth a itunes buy.
Awful, uneventful
I was so excited to read this book as it had brilliant reviews and promised so much but nothing happens!! It read like something big was about to happen but never does.