Wayne Josephson's Emma is perfectly comfortable arranging tea with Highbury village society or whipping out a stake to dispatch rabid wild vampires. Her proclivity for fostering romance among her acquaintances is matched only by the depth of her failures, as couple after couple fails to fall in line with her plans. Josephson's verbal sketches of the members of this suffocatingly close upper-class Regency-era village are written with tongue firmly in cheek. Their interactions on the public level contrast hilariously with the underlying subtleties of their true feelings toward one another.

The wit of Jane Austen is turned up several notches with this delightfully offbeat tale of matchmaking among the country set, the remarkable physical preservation of several eligible gentlemen who never seem to eat at dinner parties, and the rabid, feral menace who can't wait to dine on the blue blood of the Ton.

EMMA AND THE VAMPIRES is Wayne Josephson's first novel and an engaging froth of a read. It never takes itself too seriously and is entertaining in the same way as a good long gossip with a clever and cutting maiden aunt. It's the perfect book to pair with hot tea and biscuits on a rainy afternoon. I hope there are plenty more of Josephson's books to come!

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