The book does not follow Autens plot or writing methodes. It starts out with Emma Watson, a very pretty girl of 19 who has lived with her aunt for 14 years and has not been with her family for that long. When her aunt marries someone she disaproves of she moves back with her family. While there the whole town cannot stop talking about her. She soon makes friends with a Mrs Blake, and her younger (handsome) brother. Emma starts to fall for this younger brother, but she soon stopes her feeling as she finds out he is to marry someone else...

The book goes on with all of these twist and turns, and as I read it (although it was not at all faithful to Jane Autens writing) I still wanted to read on. I was very sadly disapointed to find that the whole book was a waste of time. Throughout the whole book they make Emma fall in love with this young man only to make him marry someone else in the end!!!!!! I was so mad, and I am sure that you will be just as disapointed in this book. I strongly recomend that you do not read this book!!!!!!!!!


Unappealing   July 5, 2003
HL (CA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Joan Aiken's attempt to re-write Jane Austen's unfinished early piece, "The Watsons", is far inferior to her take on "Emma" from Jane Fairfax's point of view (in a novel named after its heroine, "Jane Faifax"), and it does not have the saving grace of "Jane Fairfax" by a semi-entertaining story with fairly believable characters.

Emma Watson, aged 19, is returned to her impoverished family, of 3 sisters and 2 brothers. One brother, Robert, is rich and affluent, but disagreeable, and is married to an equally disagreeable woman. Another brother, Sam, is good-natured, and a budding surgeon. Elizabeth, the eldest sister, is kind and hard-working, and is suffering from a disappointed love of many years ago (rather like Anne Elliot of "Persuasion"). But the other two sisters, Penelope and Margaret, are pretentious and scheming. Emma's gracefulness draw the attention of a wealthy peer, Lord Osborne, and his former tutor, the gentlemanlike Mr. Howard, who is loved by Lady Osborne, Osborne's elegant mother.

Aiken keeps true to some of Austen's intentions in her characterization. She does not attempt to reform any sister, as Joan Coates' completion ("The Watsons") did Penelope. However, in all other respects she changes both plot and characters.

For example, the would-be triangle between Howard, Osborne and Emma is reduced to nothing. Neither of the men is particularly appealing, and both are weak-spirited and/or weak-minded. The relationship between Emma and her final choice is so negligible that it is barely developed in several pages. The same can be said for Elizabeth's relationship with her own destined spouse.

While the prose is the usual Aiken well-written fare, events crowd quickly one upon the other, with too many characters introduced in the first section of the book, and then so many events occurring with long spaces of time narrated briefly. Consequently, the book is teeming with incidents none of which leaves and impression on the readers, or supplies them with any growing attachment to any of the characters. Indeed, some of the events are downright unnecessary and unpleasant.

In summary, this book is unsatisfying, and I would not recommend it. If you wish to read a super completion of The Watsons, read Coates' completion. It is not 100% true to the fragment, but it's a good story-unlike Aiken's effort.