A Weekend with Mr Darcy: The perfect summer read for Austen addicts!. Victoria Connelly

a century. It’s not healthy.’

      Katherine was on the verge of defending herself again but had the good sense to bite her tongue realizing - reluctantly - that he was probably right. She knew what her life was like; she knew how many early nights together had been rejected in favour of the latest Jane Austen adaptation on the TV and how often she had burned a much-anticipated candlelit dinner at home because she’d had her head buried in a book. It bothered her when she stopped to think about it long enough because she knew that she was in love with a fictional world. Mr Darcy, Captain Wentworth and Henry Tilney were all creations of a female mind. They didn’t exist. But perhaps her obsession with such heroes was because there were so few real heroes and she was standing looking at a real-life non-hero right now.

      ‘Go home to your wife, David,’ she said, getting into her car.

      ‘You know I’d rather go home with you.’

      Katherine sighed. ‘You should have thought about that before you lied to me,’ she said, closing her door and driving off.

      Honestly, any man that wasn’t safely tucked between the covers of a book was a liability. You couldn’t trust any of them. Was it any wonder that Katherine turned to fiction time and time again? Ever since her father had left home when she was seven, she’d hidden away from the world around her, nose-diving into the safety of a friendly paperback. Books had always rescued her and had remained the one constant in her life.

      Before she’d been dating David, she’d had a long-term relationship with an architect called Callum. She’d thought he was perfect and that they’d be together forever like Elizabeth and Darcy but then she’d arrived home early from work to find him in bed with his ex-girlfriend. It was a betrayal that had almost broken Katherine and one she hadn’t seen coming at all. It had been an act to rival the very worst of fictional villains.

      And that’s real men for you,’ Katherine said to herself as she took the road out of Oxford that led to her village. She thought again about David’s words to her. He was so unfair. It wasn’t as if her whole life revolved around Jane Austen. It was just - well - most of it. But she had other interests. There was her yoga class which kept her in such good shape and her weekend jogging with her best friend, Chrissie. And she had lots of other friends who weren’t fictional and she was forever attending dinner parties and little get-togethers. It was just that she preferred to spend her free time with her head in a book. She wouldn’t be the respected academic she was if she hadn’t worked as hard as she had and, as far as she could see, there was no harm in that, was there? She’d made a very good career out of books for one thing and, as far as she knew, she wasn’t doing anyone any harm.

      Unlike David.

      Yes, Katherine might very well be guilty of living a life that was more fiction than reality but at least she didn’t lie to anyone. If there was one thing in the world Katherine hated more than anything else, it was a lie.

       Chapter Two

      Lorna Warwick was just putting the finishing touches to a rather amusing chapter involving a very naughty duke when the phone rang.

      ‘Hello, darling!’ a voice chimed. ‘Not a bad moment, is it?’

      ‘No, not at all,’ Lorna said, saving the chapter and switching the computer off for the day.

      ‘Good, good. Look, I’ve had a word with the organizer at Purley Hall and they’ve said not to worry - it’s your call.’

      ‘Thanks, Nadia. I appreciate that.’

      ‘So, what are you going to do?’

      Lorna sighed. ‘I’m not sure yet but I’d like to give the writer a break for a while and just be me.’

      ‘You sure that’s wise? You’ll be letting down a lot of fans, you know.’

      ‘Yes, but I’d be letting down a lot of fans if they knew who I really was, wouldn’t I?’

      ‘You must be kidding! They’d go mad if they knew the truth,’ Nadia said.

      Lorna smiled. ‘Well, I don’t think I’m quite ready to face

      that.’

      ‘All right, babes. It’s your decision.’

      ‘You coming then?’

      ‘Maybe for the Sunday evening dance.’

      ‘Any excuse to buy a new pair of shoes,’ Lorna said.

      ‘How well do you know your agent?’

      ‘As well as she knows me.’

      Nadia laughed. ‘I’ll see you at Purley, babes.’

      ‘Okay.’

      Lorna stood up and walked across to the window of the study which looked out over the garden. It had needed attention for some time. There were dandelions yellowing the lawn, grasses had sprouted up in the borders and there were brambles tumbling over the wall from the fields beyond. The house needed attention too because Lorna had fired the cleaner two weeks ago after she’d been caught pocketing pages of the latest manuscript. Now the desk was covered in a fine layer of dust and a pot plant was wilting quietly in the corner.

      It was always the same when a book was going well. Boring old jobs like housework and food preparation got neglected. The only thing that mattered was the flow of the story and - at the moment - the story was flowing well. Nadia was going to love this latest one and no doubt Lorna’s editor would too. Tansy Newman of Parnaby and Fox was Lorna’s biggest fan and couldn’t wait to get her hands on the latest manuscripts. Edits were usually minimal and Lorna was in the lucky position to be consulted about everything from jacket design to publication date - hardbacks were released just before Christmas and paperbacks in time for the summer holidays. Lorna was lucky; her advances were legendary and her royalties substantial. Not all writers were in such a position.

      For a moment, Lorna looked at the bookshelves that lined the study walls. They were filled to capacity with hardback editions, paperbacks, large print, audio books, and foreign editions ranging from German to Spanish and Japanese to Russian. It was an impressive collection considering that the first novel hadn’t been received at all well in the press.

      ‘Lorna Warwick is attempting to cash in on the fact that Jane Austen’s Regency is a perennial favourite,’ one critic wrote. ‘But what we have here is a cheap imitation. It’s soft porn dressed in a little fine muslin.’

      The words had stung bitterly until the book had become a bestseller in the US and was now seen as the forerunner in a very popular genre of Austenesque literature which included sequels, updates on the six classic novels, and the sort of sexy books that Lorna wrote. It was a huge and much-loved industry.

      Lorna’s fingers brushed the spines of the UK editions. Each featured a sumptuously-clad heroine. ‘All breasts and bonnets,’ another critic had declared, after which sales had rocketed. The public couldn’t get enough of the feisty young heroines and devilishly handsome heroes and, of course, the happy endings.

      Lorna loved writing. Nothing could beat the day-to-day weaving of a new story or getting to know characters that you hoped would captivate the readers’ imagination as strongly as they did their creator. But there was more to being a writer than writing and Lorna was under increased pressure to do publicity. Hence the phone call from the agent about the conference. Year to year, Lorna’s publisher had tried to persuade their favourite writer that it would be a great idea to attend.

      ‘Incognito if you must,’ they’d said, but Lorna hadn’t been at all sure about it. The public face of publication had never appealed. Writing was a private thing, wasn’t it? One didn’t need to be endlessly signing copies and giving talks. What was there to say, anyway? Surely the books spoke for themselves? But Lorna’s publisher had often spoken of how writers were now seen as celebrities.