Jane Austen in the hands of queen of crime, Val McDermid. Get ready for a very different 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…Praise for The Mermaids Singing:'Compelling and shocking', Minette Walters'Terrifying but stylish, cruel and compassionate. Truly, horribly good' Frances Fyfield , Mail on Sunday'Gripping, intelligent stuff' The TimesVal McDermid grew up in a Scottish mining community and then read English at Oxford. She was a journalist for sixteen years, spending the last three as Northern Bureau Chief of a national Sunday tabloid. She is now a full-time writer and divides her time between Cheshire and Northumberland.• Val McDermid is the author of 30 contemporary bestsellers and is one of the biggest selling crime authors in the UK today.• Val McDermid’s unbeatable combination of thrilling prose and masterly storytelling make her the ideal author to recapture the Gothic intrigue of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.• The press coverage off the success of the first instalment of The Austen Project, Joanna Trollope’s Sense & Sensibility, we predict will be huge and Northanger Abbey will no doubt expand the readership and take this project to new heights.• The Austen effect: PD James’s Death Comes to Pemberley sold 130,000 copies in hardback and has sold over 165,000 in paperback. PD James’s previous book, The Private Patient, sold 75,000 copies in hardback• This book has major gift-potential. Val McDermid has a huge following, and that combined with Austen fans will make the appeal massive.Competition: I Am Pilgrim; Finders Keepers; Killing Floor; Sense & Sensibility; Project Darcy. James Patterson;Val McDermid; Simon Toyne; Greg Iles; Jane Austen; Lee Child; Stephen King; Ian Rankin; Ann Cleeves; Joanna Trollope; Jane Odiwe;
Publicat de: HarperCollins Publishers