Hardback: 'I'm not at all sure that Emma will be the sort to want a husband,' she said quietly. 'I know I'm talking about a twelve-year-old girl here, but character; Mr Woodhouse, is formed at a very early stage in our lives, and there are some girls who, even though only just twelve, give very clear indications of what lies ahead in the amorous department.'
Prepare to meet a young woman who thinks she knows everything.
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 nineteen 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, there is only one person who can play with Emma's indestructible confidence, her friend and inscrutable neighbour George Knightley - this time, has Emma finally met her match?
Ever alive to the small courtesies and customs that allow society to flourish, Alexander McCall Smith brings his signature warmth, wit and invention to Jane Austen's much-loved Emma (1815) in his modern retelling of Emma (2014).
About the author: Like Mr Woodhouse, Alexander McCall Smith is the father of two daughters. Unlike Mr Woodhouse, he achieved global recognition in 1999 for his award-winning series The No 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, and he now devotes his time to the writing of fiction, including the 44 Scotland Street and the Isabel Dalhousie seres. He is the author of over eighty books on a wide array of subjects, and his work has been translated into forty-six languages.
Before becoming a full-time writer, he was for many years Professor of Medical Law at Edinburgh University and served on national and international bioethics bodies. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife, Elizabeth, a doctor.
Rating: 5/5
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