Mary Stewart

My Brother Michael

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By Mary Stewart

“I think the secret is that it belongs to all of us – to us of the West. We’ve learned to think in its terms, and to live in its laws. It’s given us almost everything that our world has that is worthwhile. Truth, straight thinking, freedom, beauty. It’s our second language, our second line of thought, our second country. We all have our own country — and Greece.”

I remember this book as not being a favorite, not coming near the high bar set by all of her other titles. Except for The Ivy Tree another of Mary Stewart’s books I wasn’t too fond of. It is precisely because of that, and because consequently, I had only read this novel twice before, that I decided to give it another chance and listen to it on Audible. Hopes were high, but I’m sorry to say that it lived down to my memories.

Of course, Mary Stewart’s prose and her descriptions of the countryside and attractions of the Greek precinct of Delphi were as masterful as ever. But I found the plot and mystery to be rather boring and uninvolving. Our heroine and our hero, the same. They share a lot of character similarities with her other creations, but there is nothing that sets them apart or makes them particularly engaging or interesting. Most of her other lead characters, especially the women, had something about them that stood out and made them uniquely likable or admirable. One of the problems may have been that Stewart’s usual teenage boy sidekick with whom our heroine can banter and look after is missing in this one. She is basically on her own, except for Simon, the hero, whom she barely comes to know. With no one to bounce off of, so to speak, Camilla remains rather one-dimensional. We learn hardly anything of her backstory other than she has recently broken off an engagement. The romance is so slight as to be almost non-existent. We only assume that they have growing feelings for each other. Nothing beneath the surface is shared with the reader. On a more shallow note, I found it distracting that Camilla was tramping and fleeing over the rough and rocky Greek countryside in a dress and presumably heels. I mean, it’s 1959 girl. Put on some trousers, Not to mention all of the cigarettes consumed.

One scene in this book that has always remained with me, did not disappoint. Camilla is being stalked by the ruthless murderer. She is hiding in plain sight but knows he will soon be able to see her and he is coming up the steep hillside after her. Instead of waiting for the inevitable she steps out, brushes herself off, and meets him instead of cowering in hiding without hope of escape. I could feel her terror and inability to deal with the suspense. Indeed, the last 20% or so of the book contains some of the most harrowing and tense action in a Mary Stewart book, culminating in a to-the-death fight between Simon and the villain.

I hate to give a Mary Stewart book any less than 3 stars, but the ending lacked closure regarding Simon and Camilla’s relationship, and how they were going to deal with a wondrous discovery that they found hidden deep in a cave.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Airs Above the Ground

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by Mary Stewart

This one takes the typical Mary Stewart heroine(nice, sensible, spirited, smart, and attractive) to Austria. I think this is the only one of her books where the heroine is already married. Vanessa and her husband had been planning a second honeymoon to Italy when he puts everything on hold because his company is supposedly sending him to Sweden. Vanessa is not pleased, to say the least, and they part in anger. But then she sees her husband in a newsreel about a tragic circus fire in a small village in Austria! And, he has a protective arm around a pretty young woman! Despite her angry parting words, Vanessa and Lewis are happily married and her upstanding husband has never given her a reason not to trust him. What is going on? Coincidentally, A friend of her mother’s has asked her to chaperone her 17-year-old son, Tim, to visit his estranged father in Vienna not far from where the newsreel was filmed. What is a concerned and suspicious wife to do? Need you ask?

If I had to name a favorite Mary Stewart novel, this would be it. Tim and Vanessa become the best of friends despite their age difference, and their relationship is charming. When Lewis is tracked down, he has a very good if rather astounding reason for his deceptive actions and his many “business trips” to Europe. It turns out that there is a lot more to her husband than Vanessa was aware of. In most of Mary Stewart’s novels, the romance is tinged with darkness and suspicion with little room for humor. I loved that this one was happy and even lighthearted. The rapport and banter between Vanessa and Tim and Vanessa and Lewis and eventually Tim and Lewis was a highlight.

Of course, there is intrigue and danger involved, including a thrilling chase over the rooftops of a fairy tale castle and a terror-filled race by car and train to rescue Tim from an unthinkable fate. Yikes! Poor Tim. PTSD is definitely part of his future. And intertwined throughout is the small family-owned circus which proudly features a Lipizzan stallion. When Vanessa, a qualified veterinarian by the way, is called on to treat an old broken-down horse who was injured in the fire, it leads to two of the most touching and triumphant scenes in a Mary Stewart novel that I can recall.

The crime part is a bit pedestrian. I liked the romanticism and drama of what turned out to be the red herring much better. But that is just a quibble. There is another mystery that crops up in this one that is much more intriguing and involving than the mere breaking of international laws. I’ve never forgotten what I learned about the Lipizzan horses and their history when I read this for the first time. I listened to this one on audible, and as usual, this added even more enjoyment to this story that I last read many many years ago.

Rating: 5 out of 5.

The Gabriel Hounds

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by Mary Stewart

I listened to this on audio, read by Ellie Haydon, who makes Christy and Charles, the two leads, posh but likable. Strangely, Christy’s Lebanese driver, Habib, is read as an English cockney. Christabel Mansel is on a guided bus tour of the Mideast. She semi-coincidentally meets her older cousin Charles. “I met him on a street called Straight” is the attention-grabbing first sentence in the book. They were raised together in England and are first cousins, both the children of twin brothers. I’ll let that sink in though I have no comment. My understanding is that in later, possibly in the U.S. editions, the editors changed this to second cousins. Because by the end of the novel, they are well on the way to marriage and presumably children. Christy is the first to admit that both she and Charles are spoiled and entitled, but it doesn’t really come through in their words and actions. They are likable and nice. Christy in particular has a lot of gumption and is not afraid of confronting the bad guys later in the book with her tart sarcastic tongue.

Charles reminds Christy that their eccentric Great Aunt Harriet lives near Damascus in a Castle called Der Ibrahim. She fancies herself as a latter-day Lady Hester Stanhope. Christy doesn’t really remember her too well, but Charles was always a favorite and he plans to go visit her. Meanwhile, Charles has to go meet someone on business, and Christy decides to steal a march on him. Because that is how she rolls. She is successful in getting into the decaying castle and meeting her elderly sick Aunt’s caretakers, who seem OK at first but may or may not be shady, and finally her reclusive and anti-social Aunt, who is really odd and creepy. Before she leaves two days later she notices that the local girl servant is wearing her great aunt’s ruby ring, a family heirloom. Something is not right.

When Christy and Charles meet up again Christy tells him the whole story. The easy and sometimes amusing banter between the two cousins is a strong point in the book. On her way to meet Charles in Beirut (or Damascus?), she is kidnapped and taken back to Aunt Harriet’s castle by a man who looks strangely familiar. From there, Christy and the Reader are confronted with being drugged, smuggling, poison, dungeons, murder, a raging fire, and the truth about Aunt Harriet.

Most of the book is, fair to say, heavy on the description and travelogue aspects and light on the plot. As exotic, romantic, and nostalgic as the 1960s Middle East is, it does slow the book up a bit. The last quarter of the book is full of action and excitement and of course, Romance. It even has a heart-touching scene. Christy and Charles make a great team and have a great relationship. Reading about the 1960s in the 2020s is nostalgia gone wild. With a touch of melancholy. Not that I ever was in Syria or Lebanon, of course. But Mary Stewart is so great at conjuring up that world and the sights and experiences that a beautiful, rich, spirited, and smart girl might have had there, (even without all the excitement) it reminds me of why I love to read. Calgon, Take me Away.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Madam, Will You Talk?

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Charity suffereth long and is kind.-1 Corinthians 13:4

“Where’s David?”
“Who’s Johnny?“

This is the first published work of Mary Stewart, who is widely credited with inspiring what became a whole genre of fiction: Romantic Suspense. So I guess you could say that this is the book that started it all. Set in the early ’50s this first novel introduced readers to the evocative descriptions of exotic locales that she became so famous and appreciated for. To say the least, her heroines do not suffer from dreary lives. Mary’s exciting adventurous novels must have been a welcome respite from the gloom and hardships of post-war England.

It has been decades since I last read this story but there were a few things that I had never forgotten from the 4 or 5 times I read this previously. This time I listened to it on Audible read by famous actress Emilia Fox. A friendship blossoms between a young widowed English tourist and a haunted but charming young boy in France and his evident fear of his father. She is determined to protect him at all costs. I remembered the tense cat and mouse chase between Charity Selbourne, our heroine, and her very scary “enemy” through the countryside and towns of France. Charity sabotaging his car using a secret trick her late husband Johnny taught her in order to buy her some time to get away from him. The ghost of Johnny, who was a race car driver before he was killed on a mission over France during WWII, is present throughout the novel. The war looms large in this story. Johnny taught Charity how to handle fast powerful cars. That skill saves her life.

“When you let excitement in, Johnny would add, in a lecture-room sort of voice, fear will follow.”

That quote always stuck with me.

The episode that stood out for me more than any other was her car race to rescue her love and the boy David from the hands of their potential murderers. Her use of her considerable driving skills becomes a deadly weapon. Charity’s development from just a nice and very frightened young woman to a formidable adversary is just awe-inspiring.

I remembered how quickly and shockingly the love story flared when I first read it. With my modern sensibilities, It was a little troublesome how firmly trust and long-term commitment between the two were established. But I went with it. I guess it does happen like that sometimes. Two other things that were also difficult for me on this re-read were the constant smoking and the way that Charity was marginalized and kind of infantilized by the hero after her courage and heroics.

But after the darkness and fear, the closure, joy, and hope of the ending were so satisfactory.

“And so it ended, where it had begun, with the little Jewish painter whose death had been so late, but so amply avenged. And, ten days later, with The Boy David carefully boxed in the back of the Riley, my husband and I set our faces to the South, and the Isles of Gold.”

Rating: 5 out of 5.

January 7, 2021

The Moon-Spinners

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By Mary Stewart

**Spoilers**

I had just seen the Disney movie The Moon-Spinners for about the millionth time motivated by reading Hayley Mills’s autobiography. I had forgotten how different it was from the book. In both, Nicola Ferris our 22-year-old young heroine runs across Mark in Crete while on vacation with her forty-something cousin Frances. In the book, Mark is already wounded and in hiding with his Greek friend, Lambis. In the movie, they are both guests at a small family hotel. They meet at a party the first night but the next morning, he is mysteriously missing. Of course, the book has Colin, Mark’s kidnapped little brother instead of the friendly Greek youth of the movie. That was a plus. Mark’s and Nicky’s anguish and our suspense over whether the bad guys had killed Colin or taken him hostage added a lot to the novel. The scenes where Nicky and Colin find a buried body that appears to be Mark’s and the discovery of the truth later make gripping reading.

There is one main thing, though, that I feel the movie improves upon and that is Mark’s motivation for his conflict and danger from Stavros and company. In the book, Mark and Colin are threatened because they witnessed a murder among thieves. But in the movie, Mark was accused of stealing some jewels in London and the only way he can clear his name is to follow Stavros to Crete, recover them, and prove Stavros was the real thief. This brings in the iconic Pola Negri to play the part of Madame Habib to whom Stavros is bringing the jewels to sell. Those scenes, and also the scenes at the diplomat’s house that they take refuge in only to find out he is one of the gang are really suspenseful and add a lot more adventure to the plot of the movie.

I did enjoy the Moonspinners very much despite the sub-par narration of Daphne Kouma. Her enunciation was not the clearest and she often whispered to convey tension or suspense in the story which also made her difficult to understand sometimes. The romance between Mark and Nicky was very slight and rather subtle, but it was sweeter than in the movie. The characters of Colin and Lambis added some humor and depth. Nicky’s successful Cat and Mouse with Sophia, Tony, and Stratos until she makes a fatal mistake keeps you on the edge. And of course, Mary Stewart’s description of the land and the character of the people and their ways were very evocative as always. The book is lighter than some of her books in which the lead characters are a little more mature, but none beat this one for charm.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

November 5, 2021

This Rough Magic

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By Mary Stewart

I re-read this on Audible. In my youth, I had read Mary Stewart’s romantic suspense novels at least several times each. This one was not a favorite, and I did not remember very much about it. Hence my decision to choose this one to listen to. Well, it was wonderful. Unlike my experience with re-reading many of my old favorites, the magic of Mary Stewart is undiminished.

Of course, her ability to evoke the sights, people, and atmosphere of her chosen settings is almost legendary. Corfu is the setting of this one. Next best thing to being there. Although a trifle dated in its depiction of her male heroes and her heroine’s relationship to them, I found that quality part of its charm.

I loved the characters. Lucy, a second or third-tier London actress was appealing, intelligent, self-aware, and courageous. She is visiting her sister Phyllida, who was well-drawn and, although a certain “type,” was interesting and provided a bit of humor (not Mary’s strong point). She provides some sisterly perspectives on Lucy’s endearing personality. Max was a very worthy hero. I loved the development of their relationship from suspicion to love. It was subtle and romantic. Mary sometimes likes to incorporate charming teenage boys into her stories. In this one, we have two. And of course, Julian Gale, Max’s father, a great Shakespearean actor, who has mysteriously retired from the London stage. The bad guy was one of her most despicable and dangerous, once his pleasant and attractive facade is slowly and subtly peeled away. Lucy shines in her management of his personality and the danger he represents.

The sightseeing trip and Lucy’s entrapment with the bad guy aboard his boat is full of tension and suspense. Mary is a master at depicting women in deadly peril. I loved that in this one, she rescues herself with no help from her hero. I did remember about the rescue of the dolphin but had forgotten how the dolphin returns the favor. It was thrilling and touching. It is all topped off with a delicious scene with Lucy, who everyone thinks was probably murdered by the bad guy, making a dramatic entrance into his home while he is being unsuccessfully questioned by the police and her friends.

There were a few things that didn’t make sense, and a few frustrations, but they were very trifling. I wish there were other Mary Stewarts I could re-read, but the three I don’t know practically by heart, are ones I actively dislike. I’ll think on it.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

July 23, 2021