Emma: A Modern Retelling

von Alexander McCall Smith

An unstoppable combination: Alexander McCall Smith and Jane Austen, as Sandy modernizes the story of Emma Woodhouse. Emma Woodhouse's widowed father is an anxious man, obsessed with nutrition and the latest vitamins. He lives the life of a country gentleman in contemporary England, protectively raising his young daughters, Isabella and Emma. While Isabella grows into a young woman, marries a society photographer for Vogue at the age of 19 and gets down to the business of reproducing herself, Emma pursues a degree in interior design at university in Bath, and then returns to set up shop in her home village. With her educated eye for the coordination of pattern and colour, Emma thinks she can now judge what person would best be paired with another, and sets about matchmaking her young friend, Harriet, with various possible suitors. Little does she know she is not the only person encouraging romantic pairings in the village. As Emma's cupid-like curiosity about her neighbours, both young and old, moves her to uncover their deeper motives, she is forced to confront a few surprising truths about her own.