Does anybody still use the phrase "chick-lit" to pigeonhole novels about young-ish women looking for/losing/finding love?

It always struck me as a rather derogatory term, a badge for something a bit fluffy and inconsequential and not really to be taken seriously.

Alexandra Potter, born in Bradford but now dividing her time between London and Los Angeles (now that's glamour - don't let anyone tell you that being good at English at school is a soft option with no real prospects) has already told this very newspaper that she doesn't care one jot what anyone labels her books so long as they buy and enjoy them.

There's also the problem, though, that chick-lit as a genre is seen as exclusively for, well, chicks, should such things exist outside Aerosmith songs.

I, therefore, have no place reading Alexandra Potter's latest, Me and Mr Darcy, much less having an opinion on it. For anyone concerned about this apparent dip in my masculinity, fear not: after reading the book I immediately borrowed three of my dad's Sven Hassel novels and had a shave in cold water.

Now that's out of the way, let's take a look at this latest novel from Alex - it's her sixth and was released to the wild on Thursday.

With her last book, the critical and commercial success Be Careful What You Wish For, and this one, Alex seems to be mining a sub-genre of chick-lit - the traditional formula given a slight fantasy twist.

Here the central conceit concerns the heroine, one Emily Albright, coming face-to-face with Pride and Prejudice's dashing, moody hero, Mr Darcy himself.

A more po-faced writer might have laboured the explanations of this with discussions of meta-fiction and how the devices of the fictional novel are subverts its own reality to blur the distinctions between the made-up and the real, but Alex has no truck with that nonsense and simply has a wonderfully fun time with her concept.

So. Emily Albright works in a bookshop in New York, surrounded by fictional heroes between the pages of her favourite novels. And, as far as Emily is concerned, the likes of Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights far outstrip the modern men she is forced to date in her serach for true love.

So fed up is she with the 21st century dating game that she would much rather stay in with a bottle of wine and Pride and Prejudice.

To escape a booze-fuelled holiday organised by a well-meaning friend, Emily flees to England to go on a tour of Jane Austen country.

The only other young person on the charabanc trip is Spike, a blokey journalist with questionable personal hygiene and dress sense, researching an article on why women like Emily are obsessed with the unattainable standard of Austen's Mr Darcy.

With the likes of Spike the best option around, Emily is convinced she'll never meet her own dream man. Until, that is, she literally walks straight into none other than Mr Fitzwilliam Darcy himself, fresh - and impossibly - out of the pages of Austen's classic.

With a less fluffy cover and a more impenetrable title this could have easily been marketed as a slice of off-the-wall general fiction, but if the author herself is happy to be filed under chick-lit, why should we care?

The writing is tight and evocative, the characters are well-rounded and believable, and Potter's central device of Mr Darcy appearing in the real world is well handled and brought to a satisfying conclusion.

Me and Mr Darcy builds on the strength of Potter's previous two novels and is evidence of a writer approaching the top of her game.

It should establish her as one of the major players in contemporary women's fiction and is crying out for some kind of movie or TV adaptation.

So forget boy wizards, this is the only Potter you need on your bookshelves this summer.

  • Me and Mr Darcy is published in paperback by Hodder at £6.99.