Alexander McCall Smith modernizes Jane Austen's story of Emma Woodhouse. Emma Woodhouse's widowed father is an anxious man, obsessed with nutrition and the latest vitamins. Emma pursues a degree in interior design at university in Bath, and then returns to set up shop in her home village. With her educated eye for the coordination of pattern and color, Emma thinks she can now judge what person would best be paired with another, and sets about matchmaking her young friend, Harriet, with various possible suitors. Little does she know she is not the only person encouraging romantic pairings in the village.