Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Catherine Morland is a casual girl with a big heart and big imagination, although a bit naïve. When she turns seventeen her family friends, Mr. and Mrs. Allen take her with them to visit Bath, where she enjoys balls and makes new acquaintances. She meets Isabella Thorpe with whom she quickly becomes friends and who soon becomes her brothers fiancé and Isabella’s rough mannered brother - John Thorpe. At the same time she also meets the Tilneys – Eleanor and her brother Henry, a sympathetic and clever young boy, who unlike other men, shares her interest in gothic novellas which she avidly reads. No wonder Catherine falls in love with him. When the Tilneys invite her to their house in Northanger, which turns out to be a real Abbey, Catherine imagines it to be full of dark secrets, like in her favorite novels. She get’s lost in her own fantasies which turn out to be nothing more than just fantasies when colliding with reality. In the meantime the situation in Bath where the rest of her friends stayed as well as the situation in Northanger gets complicated. Catherine must face the truth about friendship and the importance of family wealth and connections. In my opinion (and as the main character would say) the book is very agreeable.