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. Jane Austen and Southern romance fans alike will enjoy this sweet echo of the Regency classic. The story is adorably funny in its Shakespearean comedy of errors as Caroline and Brooks continually misunderstand each other and their romantic feelings…Their first kiss is well worth waiting for—for readers as much as the made-for-each-other couple. ― Romantic Times (four and a half stars) “I loved watching them slowly fall in love and rarely do I comment on such a thing, but the kiss in this book was awesome. I had to go back and read that thing again.” ― Remain in His Love Review Mary Jane Hathaway is the pen name of an award-nominated inspirational fiction writer who spends the majority of her literary energy on subjects un-related to Jane Austen. A homeschooling mother of six young children who rarely wear shoes, she's madly in love with a man who has never read Pride and Prejudice. She holds degrees in religious studies and theoretical linguistics, and has a Jane Austen quote on the back of her van. She can be reached on facebook at Pride, Prejudice and Cheese Grits or her regular author page of Virginia Carmichael. She was nominated for Best Debut in Series Romance 2012- Romantic Times Book Reviews. Emma, Mr. Knightley and Chili-Slaw Dogs Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. —EMMA CHAPTER ONE Utter disaster on a cake platter. Caroline Ashley stood back and surveyed her creation. The fabulous triple-layer fudge cake with light-as-air espresso-­flavored chocolate frosting did not look like the photo in the magazine. It didn’t look much like a cake at all. Leaning to the left and shedding gritty brown frosting in ultraslow motion, this cake wasn’t quite what her mother had requested for her Wednesday bridge group. The recipe looked downright simple. Mix together, bake, frost. How hard could it be? Caroline blinked the sweat out of her eyes and stared around the sweltering kitchen, groaning at the sight. Flour, mixing bowls smeared with batter and butter-cube wrappers dotted the workspace. A purist would never have upgraded from the original Civil War–era fixtures, but her mama was not a purist. The long marble counters, custom Mississippi-oak cabinets and a heated flagstone floor were all top-of-the-line. The hammered-copper sink was original, but it was obscured by dirty dishes more often than not. Their cook, Angie, loved to create her masterpiece desserts in here, although Mama had been giving her more and more time off. All the fancy kitchen equipment was going to waste on Caroline’s watch. She was trying, and failing, to be a personal chef. Not that it was a role she’d ever wanted. Lifting the cake platter, she carried it to the freezer, sliding it in between the bags of sweet peas and a carton of vanilla ice cream. In only an hour the bridge group would show up, and there wasn’t time to make another. She could pray the cake would miraculously right itself and set into something more like the picture. Or she could run away from home. “Something smells good.” Caroline whirled at the sound of the voice, even though she knew the speaker before she saw him. Brooks Elliot, her friend since before she’d learned to ride a two-wheeler down the long driveway, had a habit of showing up at all the best—and the worst—times. At his side stood a gol