Ok... this didn't end quite the way I expected. The "hero" was left very vaguely defined and neither the reader nor the heroine get to spend enough time with him. Unfortunate.
The rival suitor gets a fine ending, but you spend so much time with him that you really want him to be the main deal, not shoved aside at the last minute as a peripheral character.

HOWEVER, this gets 4 stars from me because it is so exceptionally rare to find a decent Austen continuation or sequel.

The Watsons is a fragment, and this author does a very passable job of matching the language. I mean, you occasionally remember this isn't actually Austen, but it's definitely in the ballpark.

There's something about the fact that this continuation was written in the 1950s... and another decent Austen sequel was written in the 1910s... there's still a gap between them and Austen's world, but it's measurably narrower than anybody writing in the year 2016. From my perspective it makes their writing just a bit more believable when they aspire to Austen. ( )

In this finished work of Jane Austen, we have the family of the Watsons. Father, daughters Elizabeth, Penelope, Margaret and the youngest Emily (Emma). Their story begins with Emily returning to live at her family home, Stanton Parsonage, after spending the last 15 years living with her aunt and uncle. On the remarriage of her Aunt she leaves as her Aunt travels to Ireland, and she returns to Stanton.
An enjoyable re-read of this story. ( )

Think I read the original unfinished version. Short but sweet, would have been a good story had it been finished. ( )

This is for the 1958 completion of Austen's fragment by John Coates.

( )

After making her name with Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, but before writing Mansfield Park, Emma or Persuasion, Jane Austen started a story about a family by the name of Watson. She never returned to finish this work in progress, completing only the first six chapters, but the unfinished manuscript has been tantalising Janeites ever since her nephew published the fragment in 1871. Coates himself acknowledges two earlier versions, and the dreaded Joan Aiken took a stab at the novel in 1996, so the field is open and the guidelines are limited to Austen's opening chapters, but I need search no further: The Watsons by John Coates is a delight.

The basic premise of the original story will be fairly familiar to anyone who has read at least one of Austen's books. Emma - renamed Emily by Coates, to avoid confusion with her successor, Miss Woodhouse - is the daughter of an impoverished and ailing clergyman, who has been struggling to raise his children since the death of his wife. With three older sisters at home, Emily herself was farmed out to a wealthy aunt at a young age, and the story begins with her return to the parsonage in Surrey after her aunt's hasty second marriage. The eldest daughter, Elizabeth, is caring and motherly, but at nearly thirty has given her own youth to raising her brothers and sisters. Penelope, who reminds me a lot of Mary Crawford in Mansfield Park, has also been staying with friends, but comes home to get to know Emily. Margaret is a manipulative diva reminiscent of Lydia in P+P, and there are also two grown and independent brothers, Robert - married to the very Eltonish Jane - and Sam the young doctor. Not surprisingly, with so many offspring, Mr Watson spends most of the time hiding in his room. (An early essay by Dr Chapman suggested that The Watsons is actually an early draft of Emma, but Elizabeth is the doting daughter, not Emily, in this case.) At the start of the seventh chapter, where Austen put down her pen for Coates to resume the story, the family has been introduced to the reader, and Emily meets three potential suitors at a ball. The Darcy-esque Lord Osborne, who lives in a castle with his forthright mother and sister, Osborne's tutor and friend Mr Howard, and the local flirt Tom Musgrave all take a shine to the new attraction, but Emily is drawn to only one man. Who will she marry?

There is really no telling how Austen would have continued the story, but she could surely find no fault in the style or fidelity of Mr Coates' continuation. At times, I had to keep reminding myself that the bulk of the narrative was actually written a good 150 years after Austen abandoned her work in progress! Coates captures the cadence, pace and even the humour of the original, and manages to coax a cast of endearing characters out of the briefest introductions. As with Austen's own novels, I took a while to make sense of all the names and relationships, but about midway through, everything suddenly came together and I fell in love. Emily is nothing like Emma Woodhouse, but neither is she another Fanny Price, a fate that Mr Coates thankfully saved her from, and Penelope is great fun - she says what she thinks, and has a very droll, teasing sense of humour. I also loved the growing friendship between the two sisters, who have grown up apart and barely know each other. Of the three suitors, I preferred Lord Osborne, but Coates keeps his readers guessing right until the final chapters, and all of the sisters find a suitable match in the end. Osborne's mother and Mr Howard's young nephew are two more brilliant creations who really come to life in the capable hands of Mr Coates.

Although Jane Austen gave up on The Watsons, I am eternally grateful that John Coates did not. Now I have another entertaining addition to complement the original classics, and fuel my love of all things Austen! ( )