Reading "Celia's House" is as comforting as sipping a cup of Earl Grey tea while looking looking out into a wildflower garden.

Re-issued from its original printing in the 1940's, the book covers several generations of the Dunne family residing at at the Dunnian estate in the U.K. When the book opens, we meet Celia, the elderly, unmarried auntie who will choose Dunnian's fate when she passes on. Bucking convention, she makes a very unusual choice, setting the book's plot in motion.

Stevenson includes many strong female characters for the day, and the book will resonate with Jane Austen fans. While the book may seem a bit slow moving and lacking in drama for some modern readers, others will appreciate the dry wit and genteel writing.

Thank you to NetGalley and SOURCESOOKS Landmark for a galley of this book in exchange for an honest review. ( )

This book covers about 40 years of one family's history. In 1905, old Celia Dunne is deciding who should inherit the family estate. She settles on her great-nephew, Humphrey Dunne, after she assures herself that he really loves the place like she does and would settle down there and raise his family. Her condition is that even though he already has 3 children, he must have another daughter and name her Celia, and that daughter must be the next heiress to the estate.
The Dunnes move in, years go by, two more children are born (including the aforementioned Celia), the kids grow up and get married, and two world wars are survived. This is another life-goes-on type of book, with distinct episodes but no one climax or plot thread. In the middle there is a lengthy and 99% exact Mansfield Park parallel story, with a "Henry and Mary Crawford" playing with the emotions of a "Fanny and Edmund." The details are, point-for-point, the same, in everything from putting on a play to the roles of "Edmund's" two sisters.
Enjoyable reading. A nice little loose thread is left at the end that is pretty fitting.

At the beginning, when old Celia Dunne is talking to her great-nephew, there are a couple of pretty amazing remarks she makes about things she has seen (she's nearing 100 years old) and stories that her grandparents had told her about things they had seen...these kind of conversations remind one that what we call "history" is not really all that long ago, when you start talking in terms of generations (albeit long-lived ones). ( )

I liked it, but then Mansfield Park is one of my favorite Austen novels. I always loved Fanny (except for her name and the fact that she married her cousin). She was insightful, observant, and uncompromising in the face of pressure. Thus I really liked the novel. It was much more tolerant and understanding of the characters that were difficult to like in Austen's tale.

I didn't, however, much care for the ending. It seemed like it needed one last chapter. No "love at first sight" was needed. Just something a bit more homey and involved... I mean, we had just met Courtney. I needed more than Humphrey's gut feeling to like the kid. ( )

A pure comfort read about a family in Scotland and the house they inhabit through the years between the two World Wars (mostly). When Miss Celia Dunne feels her time is running out, she makes a will that will surprise everyone, dismaying or enraging presumptive heirs while delighting and perplexing its actual beneficiaries. She knows precisely what she's doing, and cannot be reasoned out of it. Time will prove her right. A marvelous antidote to grim realities and fictional horrors, this story was warm, predictable and entirely satisfying. If this is the sort of thing you like, you'll like it a lot. ( )

Always a lovely re-read. ( )