Her mother and father seldom argued and never fought, and her siblings were so average she despaired of ever discovering any dark family secrets to add excitement to her life. Our modern heroine, sixteen-year-old Cat Morland, is a vicar’s daughter living a rather disappointing life in the Piddle Valley of Dorset. I was encouraged by the choice of McDermid as an author and intrigued to see how she would transport the story into the 21 st century. Fresh and funny, the writing style is not as accomplished as her later works but no one can dismiss the quality of Austen’s witty dialogue nor her gentle joke at the melodramatic Gothic fiction so popular in her day. Written in the late 1790s when Austen was a fledgling writer, this Gothic parody about young heroine Catherine Morland’s first experiences in Bath society and her romance with the dishy hero Henry Tilney is one of my favorite Austen novels. (Apr.In the second installment of The Austen Project, bestselling Scottish crime writer Val McDermid takes a stab at a contemporary reimagining of Jane Austen’s most under-appreciated novel, Northanger Abbey. 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.
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. 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. "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.
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.
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. Scottish crime writer McDermid (Cross and Burn) adeptly reworks Jane Austen's Gothic satire for the modern audiences.
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