Read in July 2013
Thornyhold, by Mary Stewart
Three Stars
Facing some down time after surgery, I decided to read my way through the non-Merlin titles by Mary Stewart that I’d missed as a pre-teen. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s Stewart was the queen of romantic suspense with a bunch of contemporary novels that each featured a bright young woman in an exotic locale who is faced with a threatening mystery. Although Thornyhold contains a dash of mystery and a hint suspense, it does not fit her winning formula. The setting is postwar 1940s England, and the main character is the rather drab Gilly Ramsey, who grows up in a cold family. After the death of her mother, she keeps house for her vicar father, and after his death, she inherits a house called Thornyhold from her mother’s cousin. When she moves in, Gilly discovers that her mother’s cousin was a sort of witch with an ancient cookbook of herb potions. She befriends the motherless boy who lives nearby with his author father. Over the course of the story, Gilly sorts out her life and her new house, finding both purpose and romance. Fans of cozy mysteries will like this story, but those looking for another installment of Stewart’s non-Merlin romantic suspense definitely will not.
Rose Cottage, by Mary Stewart
Three Stars
Another non-romantic suspense and non-Merlin title from Mary Stewart, Rose Cottage offers some definite pleasures. The setting is postwar 1940s England, where widowed Kate Herrick returns to her childhood home, Rose Cottage, a servant’s dwelling on a great estate that is being converted to a hotel. Kate grew up in the cottage with her grandparents and her unwed mother, who left her daughter behind when she ran off with a lover and soon after was killed in an auto accident. She has returned at the request of her grandmother, now a retainer at the estate family’s other great house in Scotland, to clean out the cottage of family furnishings and mementos before the hotel conversion. Kate’s visit coincides with some mysterious doings, which send her off through the neighborhood to get reacquainted with old friends and meet new arrivals. Stewart offers a charming portrait of a small English village and its inhabitants and some engaging plot points and twists.