Vanity and Vexation: A Novel of Pride and Prejudice

“Tall, dark, and arrogantly handsome – not to mention distinguished, powerful, and rolling in money. Mr. Darcy? No, that’s just the woman director of Pride and Prejudice,” reports Nicholas Llewellyn Bevan, impoverished novelist and occasional (reluctant) journalist, when a TV production company trundles into his sleepy North Yorkshire valley. Amusedly Llew watches these glamorous invaders combine the filming of Jane Austen’s romantic classic with the much less modest pursuit, off-camera, of real-life romances with the locals.

Under his very nose, his bashful handsome neighbor John is plucked out of a village dance by the famously gorgeous (and wealthy) leading actress, Candia Bingham, with whom he at once falls completely in love. Our would-be hero manages only to trip over the black-booted foot of the intimidating and imperious director, Mary Dance. So he’s amazed – and a little bit alarmed – when her steely eye seems to be straying his way.

An update on Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Vanity and Vexation is a modern take on her blueprint of the romance game complete with sex, money, and power.