We often don't realize the comparative idiocy of youth until we're older. Awhile ago, we had a new employee in my company. Newly graduated from college, she's only 22. The rest of us, being old, wise, ancient creatures of mid-20 to 30-somethings, looked upon her with contempt. "She's a baby!" we ...
I've been a Mary Stewart fan since a college roommate introduced me to her books, more years ago than I am willing to cop to. But my least favorite of all her books that I've read has always been The Stormy Petrel. I excitedly snagged it at a used bookstore years ago, read it and scratched my hea...
The Wicked Day is the final volume in Mary Stewart’s Arthurian saga, which began with The Crystal Cave. Unlike the first three books in the series, where Merlin is the first-person narrator, The Wicked Day is told in the third person but focuses on the life of Mordred, Arthur’s illegitimate son, ...
Originally posted here.I've always wanted to go to Greece. It seems like such a lovely place, rich in culture and I would love to try authentic Greek food. I have no idea when I'll be able to go though so I have to content myself with reading books with Greek settings. The Moonspinners is set in ...
This is another enjoyable Mary Stewart suspense novel (sorry, I'm never going to stop talking about her books. They're just so much fun). Airs Above the Ground, written in 1965, may not be her best novel, but it's set in Austria, a lovely country and one of my favorite places in the world, so bet...
Deception and hidden identity are at the heart of this 1961 Mary Stewart novel. Mary Gray travels from Canada to Northumberland in northern England, where she's accosted on Hadrian's wall, in the middle of nowhere, by an extremely handsome but very hostile guy, Con Winslow. Con is certain that sh...
I picked this up when I was just getting over a bout with the flu, and enjoyed this gentle read!Not your typical Mary-Stewart-suspense novel, this book takes the reader through a time shortly after World War 2 has ended. Set in England, Kathy (or Kate), has been called upon by her aging grandmot...
Sometimes it is the later books in a series that really bring the whole thing together. This is definitely the case when it comes to The Hollow Hills. The story doesn’t exceed The Crystal Cave, in fact, I would say the Crystal Cave is by far the more interesting novel, but I firmly believe that...
I have a collection of vintage Mary Stewart novels, and this one is only 175 pages in my 1963 paperback, so it's a very quick but enjoyable read. A bit different than Mary Stewart's other romantic suspense novels, this one has echoes of the old murder mysteries where a group of people in an isola...
I often think timing is everything when it comes to books (in some cases anyway). An otherwise well written and well plotted story read at the wrong time, or in the wrong company, (for me) means a missed opportunity. I think that was the case with my first Mary Stewart novel several years ago, ...
Originally published on my blog here in January 2002.When I first read this novel, quite soon after it was published, I thought it was the poorest that Stewart had written. On re-reading it, I have modified my opinion, and new feel that it is not actually too bad, even if not among her best.The s...
Jennifer Silver goes to the Pyrenees in France to see her widowed cousin Gillian, who has written to her and asked her to visit. Jennifer runs into Stephen at the hotel; a man from her past who was warned off her by her mother. A veteran of the Korean war he was a music student of her father’s bu...
The third installment of the Arthurian Saga tracks the beginning of Arthur’s reign as king and the ending years of Merlin. The pace is quite different than the first two, and the story is sort of away from most of the action going on in Britain. This is due to the fact that Merlin is our main c...
Crossposted from my blog2 StarsI’ve spoken about my love of all things Arthurian before, so I was really expecting to enjoy this book. All the ingredients are there – it’s centered on a character I normally like, on events that are often just skated over as prologue, and grounded in more unique ‘...
This appealing novel seems continually to struggle to transcend the formulaic conventions YA fantasy fiction. As I read, I kept thinking of Neil Gaiman’s The Ocean at the End of the Lane and of how Gaiman might have dealt with the same material. In both novels, a resourceful child strives to es...
SUPPER with Lisa and Grandfather was not the ordeal I had feared it might be. The old man was in excellent spirits and, though he was in something of a 'do you remember' vein, and Lisa's eyes, under their lowered lids, watched us both over-anxiously, it went off smoothly enough, with no hitch tha...
Dickens: Pickwick Papers, Philippe was already asleep, curled in an extraordinarily small bundle under the bedclothes. The light was still on, and his book had slid to the floor. Something was clutched in his hand, and I drew the sheet aside to see what it was-one of the Queen's soldier; with t...
IV. 1. The bay was dark and silent: no sound, no point of light. It was easy enough to see our way across the pale sand without using the torch we had brought; and once we had scrambled up under the shadow of the pines where the dolphin had lain, and gained the rocky path along the foot of the so...
It is a blasphemy even to question their purposes, and to wonder, as I had done, who they were or if they even existed is blasphemy itself. Now I knew my god was back with me, that his purpose was working, and though I still saw nothing clearly, I knew that his hand would be over me when the time...
Looking back now, I see that much of what happened has been changed in my memory, like a smashed mosaic which is mended in later years by a man who has almost forgotten the first picture. Certain things come back to me plain, in all their colours and details; others — perhaps more important — com...
She was married to Pelleas, king of the islands to the west of the Summer Country, where the River Brue meets the Severn Sea. Nimuë herself had been born a princess of the River Isles, and had known her husband since childhood. Their castle stood almost within sight of the Tor, and when Pelleas, ...
Mrs McDougall had promised to have milk and bread for me, and there might possibly be mail, brought over by the morning’s ferry. Neil had told me to try and forget about the ‘mystery’, and this proved surprisingly easy to do. On such a morning, with the sky full of larks, and the banks beside the...
The Koran: Sura LXXXVII I MET him in the street called Straight. I had come out of the dark shop doorway into the dazzle of the Damascus sun, my arms full of silks. I didn’t see anything at first, because the sun was right in my eyes and he was in shadow, just where the Straight Street becomes a ...