Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Chili-Slaw Dogs
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15
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Average rating2
"From the bestselling author of Pride, Prejudice, and Cheese Grits comes a new and comical contemporary take on the perennial Jane Austen classic, Emma. Caroline Ashley is a journalist on the rise at The Washington Post until the sudden death of her father brings her back to Thorny Hollow to care for her mentally fragile mother and their aging antebellum home. The only respite from the eternal rotation of bridge club meetings and garden parties is her longtime friend, Brooks Elliott. A professor of journalism, Brooks is the voice of sanity and reason in the land of pink lemonade and triple layer coconut cakes. But when she meets a fascinating, charismatic young man on the cusp of a brand new industry, she ignores Brooks's misgivings and throws herself into the project. Brooks struggles to reconcile his parents' very bitter marriage with his father's devastating grief at the recent loss of his wife. Caroline is the only bright spot in the emotional wreckage of his family life. She's a friend and he's perfectly happy to keep her safely in that category. Marriage isn't for men like Brooks and they both know it... until a handsome newcomer wins her heart. Brooks discovers Caroline is much more than a friend, and always has been, but is it too late to win her back? Featuring a colorful cast of southern belles, Civil War re-enactors, and good Christian women with spunk to spare, Emma, Mr. Knightley, and Chili-Slaw Dogs brings the modern American South to light in a way only a contemporary Jane Austen could have imagined"--
Featured Series
2 primary booksJane Austen Takes The South is a 2-book series with 2 primary works first released in 2013 with contributions by Mary Jane Hathaway.
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I grabbed this at the library during the CFD retellings challenge and just now got around to finishing it. For the most part I really enjoyed it, once I got past the first few chapters, and near the end I liked how the author gave such a subtle and appropriate scene of how the heroine walked into the room and the hero was so overcome by loving her that he dropped a book, and she just thought he was clumsy. But, the same night, the heroine accidentally got spiked punch...and not just kissed the hero, but made out with him on the sofa, pulling him down on top of her and liking the feel of his weight on her body and only getting stopped by her mother coming downstairs looking for her.
That's just totally inappropriate. Drunk or not. And the hero certainly wasn't drunk.
I liked the writing and I liked the characters. My copy was well edited and I had a hard time putting it down once I got into the story. But I may or may not read more of this author because of that scene. The book is a four-star, but I'm taking off two stars because of having a make-out session that was considered just fine in a Christian book. One star for the making out, one star for not even feeling the need to excuse it or be embarrassed by it.
