Emma attends the Stolzenberg school in Germany. She loves it there. Her father works there. She is teaching Hannah, a first time student at the school, all about the wonderful castle that they are a part of.
Emma finds a book in a library that has been abandoned and is fascinated by its filmy pages and stories. The stories date back to the beginning of the castle.
She soon finds that there are magical qualities to this book and embarks on using those qualities, sometimes to good and sometimes to bad.

This is a fantasy with a little teenage romance. ( )

Fascinating and engaging are the first two words that come to mind. The story grows more involved all the way to what is a slightly sad, but mostly sweet ending. Getting there involves the famed 'we hate each other at first sight' pair in Emma and Darcy, followed by a very slow 360 degree turn that's complicated by his obsession with finding out what happened to his sister four years earlier, coupled with her semi-crush on another guy who's not what she thinks he is, and an obsession with a book that's the literary equivalent of Pandora's Box. Ultimately an extremely enjoyable book. ( )

Oh.my.god! this book was fantastic! I am a novice in the world of Jane Eyre having only read Pride and Prejudice once *Gasp* horror of horrors, I know! I'm working on it I swear. Anyway, this was such an intriguing story. From what I do remember of Mr. Darcy, Mechthild Gläser stayed true to his temperament and personality all the while telling a story so vastly different from the orginal. I admired and enjoyed that quite a lot. If all retellings or "stories inspired by:" were this good my TBR list would be 10x longer! I also enjoyed the story being set in Germany as I have a strong German heritage. Thank goodness it was a translated version tho, my comprehension of written German is not nearly what my comprehension of spoken German is. Unless you are a purest to the Jane Eyre world I believe you will enjoy this book. ( )

When Emma finds a book in the library, she assumes it's merely a chronicle of the history of the village. She decides to add her own entries to the chronicle to record the day-to-day events of her boarding school. Emma soon discovers that anything she writes in the book eventually comes true.

Darcy returns to his old school to investigate his sister's disappearance from the school four years earlier. Everyone thinks that she ran away from school but Darcy suspects there is something more behind her disappearance.

Part mystery, part fantasy, and part Gothic romance, this is a charming combination of Jane Austen's Emma and Pride and Prejudice. ( )

Literary Merit: Good
Characterization: Good
Recommend: Yes
Grades: 7-12
Emma attends a renown boarding school that is a former castle and where her hypochondriac father is the head master. The book starts out at the beginning of a new school year. Emma decides to start a secret book club with a couple of her friends & while cleaning out an old library in a neglected part of the old castle, she finds an old book that appears to be a journal of some sort. Enter the conflict. A former student whose family happens to have been the previous owners of the castle, suddenly appears & forbids Emma & her friends from using the library as their meeting place.
Their first few meetings are tense as Darcy de Winter is a very surly, arrogant and angry young man and doesn't have the time or the desire to converse with the likes of Emma.
As it turns out, Darcy has returned to the castle in the hopes of finding any clues in the disappearance of his twin sister several years ago, from the school. Soon Emma & Darcy become allies, but she is hesitant to tell him that she has discovered that anything she writes in the journal, comes to pass. She also, unfortunately discovers that words can be taken many different ways & not all of her stories turn out the way she had intended.
As Emma & Darcy search for clues, they realize someone else is aware of the book and is trying to steal it from them.

This book has mystery, magic, action and love interests. I did enjoy it but it was a bit slow at points. ( )