Northanger Abbey by Val McDermid digested read

John Crace condenses a pale imitation of Austen's gothic pastiche with added vampire intrigue into a bite-sized 600 words

It was a source of constant disappointment to Catherine Morland that her life did not more closely resemble her books. Though by the end of this one, she would be glad of all the distance she could get. Improbable as it may seem in the 21st century, Cat, as she preferred to be known (short for Catatonic), had never once left her small Dorset village in her 17 years. Indeed it was not entirely clear she was aware of anything but the Twilight novels of Stephenie Meyer. So it came as some surprise to Cat to be informed by her neighbours, the Allens, that there was a place called Edinburgh in Scotland and that they were inviting her to join them for the festival.

To her surprise, on arrival in the city of contrasts, intimate surprises and contrasts, Cat found she had been invited to the Highland Ball! She wasn't entirely sure why Highland Ball! had an exclamation mark but she assumed it was the style of a Jane Austen parody, and so worried instead about her inability to reel. Fortunately, Mrs Allen had already considered this possibility and had arranged for Cat to have dancing lessons with the enigmatically pale Henry Tilney.