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The Watsons is the Jane Austen novel that Austen abandoned about a quarter of the way through, with a setup (the Watson sisters, an ailing clergyman father, a balls-and-courtship structure) that the fragments suggest she intended to take in a darker direction than Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice. Joan Aiken's completion is the more conservative of the two well-known versions; she finishes the book in a register that emphasizes the comedic over the unsparing.
The completion is technically accomplished. Aiken's prose moves easily next to Austen's. The plot resolutions follow the genre rules and earn their happiness. Whether you find this satisfying depends almost entirely on what you think Austen was up to in the original fragment.
Three stars. Recommended for Austen completists. Aiken's solo Austen novels (Eliza's Daughter, Jane Fairfax) are the stronger work.
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