About Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens

Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens is a slightly demented sequel to Pride and Prejudice, although it has been described more accurately as “not so much Pride and Prejudice's sequel as its bastard offspring following a drunken one-night stand with the X-Files.”

It was originally serialised here, starting — quite by chance — on Jane Austen's birthday in 2009 and running for a year thereafter. Much to the author's surprise and delight, it was picked up by Proxima Books, an imprint of Salt Publishing, just over a month before its run ended.

Here's the official blurb: A year or two into her marriage, Elizabeth Darcy has much on her mind: she has still not produced an heir for Mr Darcy, there are preparations to be made for the Pemberly summer ball, and her youngest sister Lydia has been abducted by aliens. As Regency England sleepwalks towards tentacled oblivion, will she be able to reunite with her old foe Wickham and put a stop to their evil plans? Meanwhile, in the East End of London, the repulsive Mr Collins is running a Mission for fallen women whilst his poor wife Charlotte has fallen under the malign spell of Lord Byron and is now a laudanum addict. But is everything at the Mission all that it seems? What is Mr Darcy doing there? And why are there strange lights in the sky over Lady Catherine de Bourgh's seat at Rosings? This is probably the most unconventional sequel to a Jane Austen novel ever written. It is certainly the funniest.

Mrs Darcy versus the Aliens will be launched at the start of October 2011 at FantasyCon in Brighton. It is, however, already available as a paperback in all good bookshops and in all the usual online places.

You can find the official description of the book on Salt Publishing's website here, although you should be warned that it contains a very scary picture of the author.