Elizabeth Bennet, CIA, has just returned from an exhausting deep-cover mission when she receives a late-night call to Langley, where she’s offered yet another new deep-cover mission without the break she sorely needs. She would be teamed with Charles Bingley, fellow CIA agent, and Fitzwilliam Darcy, MI-6.

Darcy has come to the States following George Wickham, who is believed to be the leader of a notorious international terrorist group. When he first meets Elizabeth, Darcy is unconvinced that she’s the right agent for the job. His dismissal irritates her so much that she accepts the mission, one she otherwise would have refused: the seduction of Wickham.

Pride, Prejudice, and Pretense is shadowy, taut, and urgent. It is also, by turns, romantic, ironic, and reflective. Can Elizabeth work with Darcy? Can she face what the mission requires of her? Can he? Can she discover her desired future, recover her unsorted past, and do it all in her fraught, undercover present?

A spy tale, a romance, and a character study, the novel takes Austen into the shadows—pitting Elizabeth and Darcy against each other, against George Wickham, and also against their professions and their pasts.