Vanity and Vexation: A Novel of Pride and Prejudice

A clever and cunning modern day retelling of the adored Jane Austen novel

Tall, dark, and arrogantly handsome---not to mention distinguished, powerful, and rolling in money. Mr. Darcy? No, that's just the woman director of Pride and Prejudice, reports Nicholas Llewellyn Bevan, impoverished novelist and occasional (reluctant) journalist, when a TV production company trundles into his sleepy North Yorkshire valley. Amusedly he watches these glamorous invaders combine the filming of Jane Austen's romantic classic with the much less modest pursuit, off-camera, of real-life romances with the locals.

Under his very nose, his bashful handsome neighbor John is plucked out of a village dance by the famously gorgeous (and wealthy) leading actress, Candia Bingham, with whom he at once falls completely in love. Our would-be hero manages only to trip over the black-booted foot of the intimidating and imperious director, Mary Dance. So he's amazed---and a little bit alarmed---when her steely eye seems to be straying his way.

A witty and entertaining update on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, Austen fans old and new will adore Vanity and Vexation's modern take on her sublime blueprint of the romance game complete with sex, money, and power. With an assured and respectful hand, in the context of the contemporary world, Kate Fenton has penned a riveting story with a hilarious twist.

Author: Kate Fenton
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Published: 07/01/2005
Pages: 288
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 8.38h x 6.34w x 0.76d
ISBN: 9780312328023

Review Citation(s):
Ingram Advance 07/01/2005 pg. 59

About the Author
After Oxford, Kate Fenton was employed as a researcher at the House of Commons, by a MP, and played piano on the side. She later worked for the BBC, first as a researcher, then as a features and documentary producer, in Radio Wales, the World Service, and finally Radio 4 in London. She and her husband, actor Ian Carmichael, live with two spaniels in North Yorkshire where she writes her novels. Vanity and Vexation is her first novel published in the United States.

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