Northanger Abbey - Softcover

Val McDermid is the best-selling author of The Skeleton Road and twenty-eight previous novels, which have been translated into over forty languages. She has received numerous awards recognizing her exceptional career, including the Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for outstanding achievement in the field of crime writing and the Pioneer Award from Lambda Literary. Her individual books have won many prizes, including the Los Angeles Times Book of the Year Award and the CWA Gold Dagger.

Praise for Northanger Abbey:

The unmitigated pleasure here is the obvious relish with which McDermid relocates Austen’s Regency England tale of romantic intrigue in Bath’s high-society circuit and imaginatively-spun Gothic intrigue at a rural abbey to 21st-century Britain. . . . McDermid’s success lies in her ability to allow her version of Northanger Abbey to dovetail tidily and enjoyably with Austen’s original while infusing it with her own humor, wit, and style. . . . Long before Cat is off to the Tilneys’ abbey, long before our modern-day crime author draws a final, canny ace from her tartan sleeve, you’ll have succumbed to the delights of Northanger à la McDermid.” Daneet Steffens, The Boston Globe

Gold Dagger Award winning British crime writer McDermid offers a canny new twist on Jane Austen’s early novel. . . . McDermid’s brilliant update of the characters’ outlooks, philosophies, and attitudes within a modern context makes this a reimagined delight for Austen fans.” Amber Peckham, Booklist

Scottish crime writer McDermid adeptly reworks Jane Austen’s Gothic satire for the modern audiences. . . . Following Austen’s storyline but diverging in distinctive ways of her own, McDermid captures the naivete of the protagonist of Austen’s prose. . . . 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.” Publishers Weekly

Praise for Val McDermid:

Val McDermid . . . has the ruthless psychological scalpel that forms part of the equipment of all good novelists, whatever their genre. And, fortunately for us, she knows just how to use it.” Andrew Taylor, The Guardian (UK), on The Retribution

McDermid is a whiz at combining narrative threads, shifting to the viewpoints of her various characters . . . and ending chapters with cliffhangers that propel you to keep reading. . . . She’s the best we’ve got.” New York Times Book Review, on Killing the Shadows

One of the most accomplished crime novelists in the UK, Val McDermid has an acute reading of the psychology that lifts her out of the genre strait-jacket. She delivers pulse-raising set-pieces when necessary, but truthfulness of characterization is always more important than the exigencies of plot.” Barry Forshaw, The Independent (UK), on The Vanishing Point

Smooth. Confident. Deeply satisfying. What else can you say about McDermid’s writing?” Entertainment Weekly (editor’s choice), on The Torment of Others

Her work is taut, psychologically complex and so gripping that it puts your life on hold.” The Times (UK)