Présentation de l'éditeur
From the author of Mr. Darcy's Daughters comes "a witty, page-turning love letter to [Jane] Austen's work" (Publishers Weekly).
Critically acclaimed and award-winning—but hardly bestselling—author Georgina Jackson can’t get past the first chapter of her second book. When she receives an urgent email from her agent, Georgina is certain it’s bad news. Shockingly, she’s offered a commission to complete a newly discovered manuscript by a major nineteenth-century author. Skeptical at first about her ability to complete the manuscript, Georgina is horrified to know that the author in question is Jane Austen.
Torn between pushing through or fleeing home to America, Georgina relies on the support of her banker-turned-science student roommate, Henry, and his quirky teenage sister, Maud—a serious Janeite. With a sudden financial crisis looming, the only way Georgina can get by is to sign the hugely lucrative contract and finish the book.
Extrait
One
Email from
[email protected]
To
[email protected]
Ring me.
Henry stood at the door of Georgina’s room, holding a weighty textbook in one hand and marking his place with a finger. He looked at his lodger with concern. “Gina, why the screech of terror? What’s up? Why are you looking at that screen as though it had grown fangs?”
“It’s an email from Livia.”
“Okay, fangs is right. What does she want?”
“She wants me to ring her.”
“I’ll get the phone.”
“I don’t want to ring her. It’s bad news.”
“What precisely does she say in her email?”
“Ring me.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
“You can’t deduce from those two words that it’s bad news.”
Oh, but Georgina could. Good news, Livia rang her. Bad news, she expected the recipient to foot the cost of the call. Except that it didn’t actually cost Livia anything to make a call, it wasn’t as though Georgina were on the other side of the Atlantic.
“Wish I were in America,” she said, staring at the screen. “Or Tasmania; in the bush would be good.” Perhaps if she looked long and hard enough, the words would rearrange themselves. The message would say, Enjoy more Viagrous sex, every time. Or, You have inherited a million zoots, send us a hundred dollars and we’ll show you how to claim your rightful inheritance. Or…
Ring me.
Like Alice, faced with that bottle which was labelled
Drink me. Only there’d be no magical change of being for Georgina. Although after a few minutes of conversation with Livia, she’d feel about two foot high, so…
Henry was back, with the phone in his hand. “Call her.”
Livia’s direct line, ringing and ringing, thank God, she’d gone out, was in a meeting. “Yes? Who? Georgina? I’m on the other line, can’t talk. Get over here. Right away. See you in twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes? Livia, it takes me—”
Brrrrrr. The sound of an empty line, of a phone put down, of an agent who is too busy to talk.
“What can she want?”
Henry looked up from a page dense with equations and formulae and gave her a quizzical look. “Go and find out?”
“I suppose so. Should I take a chapter of
The Sadness of Jane Silversmith?”
“Which of the—how many is it now?”
“Forty or so. All right, forty-eight, to be precise.”
“If she wanted to see a chapter, she’d say so. I judge she wants to see you, rather than a chapter.”
“Twenty minutes! She’s mad.”
“Less than that, in a taxi.”
“More than that by bus. I don’t do taxis except in emergencies, remember?”
“Perhaps this is an emergency. Go, okay? Taxi, underground, bus, camel, donkey, yak—just go.”
Henry went back to his study, which overlooked the street. It had been his parents’ study when they lived in the house. They now had a flat in Cambridge, overflowing with books and papers; his study was somewhat more orderly, but still the room of a man who liked to have everything at hand. He kept his desk clutter-free by dumping whatever he was finished with on to shelves and another table, where the pile of books obscured a silver framed photo of S
