Even in my wildest dreams, I never thought I’d write a self-help book – let alone one about meeting men. I am the last person in the world who should be giving anyone advice on this topic…I spent most of my 20s (and 30s) single. But thankfully, in the case of Finding Mr Darcy, I have the secret weapon of Jane Austen on my side, who is, after all, the author of some of the most famous love stories in the English language: what she doesn’t know about heroes and heroines and getting them together to live happily ever after isn’t, frankly, worth knowing.
Her six novels contain the answers to all those questions we spend years wondering about: questions like why nice girls don’t get the guy (according to Jane, they do), why pretending to be a bimbo seems to work so well (actually, it doesn’t), and why the only way to meet a man in the not-so-new millenium seems to be to spend countless hours standing around in pubs and clubs and other dodgy venues, waiting helplessly for someone to come and talk to you (in fact, says Jane, there are lots of other options – hurrah!).
So if you are a nice, reasonably bright woman who is fed up spending your Saturday nights in places where your feet stick to the carpet; who sometimes finds herself in the midst of the nightclub wishing you were home watching Colin Firth in clinging wet linen; or who needs some alternative strategies in order to find a man who wears wears long boots, cravats, and owns a large country estate in Derbyshire, this book is for you.