Mary Stewart Fan Club

The Mary Stewart Fan Club has been such a fun addition to my reading life this year. I missed the first two books, but I am so glad that my friends' posts were so tempting and convinced me I needed to join. 

The first book I joined with was Nine Coaches Waiting, a new-to-me Mary Stewart. 

"I've been sorely tempted by the #MaryStewartFanClub posts I've seen so far this year. The Moonspinners, This Rough Magic, Wildfire at Midnight, and Touch Not the Cat were favorites in high school, borrowed from my mom's collection. Happily, my library decided to cooperate— they actually had an edition of Nine Coaches Waiting! 🙌🏻🎉💃🏼 Clearly a well-loved copy, at that. It was delightful. I particularly loved the Jane Eyre and Cinderella references. ⁠⁠• And yes, I now have used copies of the next three books for the Mary Stewart fan club reading schedule headed my way courtesy of the USPS, as unfortunately _neither_ library system near me has them in their collections. Clearly a grave oversight. (And yes I requested that the libraries buy them so others do not have to suffer as I have 😝)"

“If a man goes up into Parnassus after sunset, why should he not see strange things? The gods still walk there, and a man who would not go carefully in the country of the gods is a fool.” ― Mary Stewart, My Brother Michael⁠ ❇︎ A (literary) trip to Greece was in order, and Mary Stewart delivered. ⁠Now I am wishing that said literary trip could turn into a real-life trip.

Cue all the delicious gothic vibes with Thunder on the Right, and multiple Ann Radcliffe references (see: The Mysteries of Udolpho). Delightful. ⁠Thanks ThriftBooks for coming through with the vintage 1957 edition featuring our main character Jennifer in a fetching billowy red cape as she paces the High Pyrenees, with the convent grounds of Notre-Dame-des-Orages (Our Lady of the Storms) in the background. ⁠⁠⛈️ Were you aware that thunder on the right is considered a good omen? (At least if you're Greek. And thunder on the left is a good omen if you're a Roman.) ⁠

“People are straightforward enough, on the whole, till one starts to look for crooked motives, and then, oh boy, how crooked can they be!” ― Mary Stewart, The Ivy Tree⁠ • Mary Stewart ⁠transports us to rural Northumberland for this tale of romance, ambition, and deceit. Whitescar is a beautiful old house and farm situated in Roman Wall country. There's deception, mistaken identity, scheming heirs, Roman ruins, long-dead love, and quite possibly my favorite cat book scene ever 😆 • Please enjoy the billowy blue cloak, ruffled sleeves, poofy fur coat, riding boots and strong moustache/hair game that is my vintage The Ivy Tree cover.

“It was the egret, flying out of the lemon grove, that started it. I won’t pretend I saw it straight away as the conventional herald of adventure, the white stag of the fairy-tale, which, bounding from the enchanted thicket, entices the prince away from his followers, and loses him in the forest where danger threatens with the dusk.” ― Mary Stewart, The Moonspinners⁠ ∙ Re-reading The Moonspinners was a delight. The little sister read this story last year, so we were able to chat about it some after I finished, which is always fun. Was decidedly amused at a bit of a throwaway line our main lady Nicola made to her cousin Frances about how Frances' chain smoking habit was bound to give her cancer, given all the smoking that tends to go on in Stewart's novels. Mary Stewart has me wanting to visit Greece yet again, although this time I'm eyeing Crete 🇬🇷⁠ But maybe no murders/attempted murders when I visit? ⁠

"Two things were quite certain: I did not want to go anywhere near Godfrey Manning's boathouse; and if I didn't, I should despise myself for a coward as long as I lived. I had a gun. There was probably a key. I had at least to try it." ― Mary Stewart, This Rough Magic⁠ ⁠🌊✨🇬🇷🐬⁠ Corfu here I come!! Wait, maybe that's not what I was supposed to get out of This Rough Magic? Mary Stewart gives me the travel bug 🤷🏼‍♀️ The delightful vintage copy is my mother's. It was so much fun to re-read this Stewart. I remember it being my favorite out of my mom's small collection when I read it forever ago. All the Tempest references really elevate it. ⁠I'll leave you with a final delightful quote: “I supposed there were circumstances in which it was correct, even praiseworthy, for a girl to bash a man's head in with a lamp while he was kissing her...” Actress Lucy Waring can hold her own 😉⁠

I had a bit of a late start to Airs Above the Ground, the most recent #MaryStewartFanClub installment. That said, I had no trouble catching up! Such a fun, engaging read. This was a new-to-me Stewart, and I loved being thrown into the action as our heroine, Vanessa, tries to figure out why her husband Lewis, who is ostensibly in Stockholm for a business trip, shows up in a newsreel story about a circus fire in Austria. All of this is set against a backdrop of circus life, stolen goods, international smuggling, and an old mystery involving the disappearance of a famed Lipizzaner stallion and his groom. Mary Stewart did not disappoint!⁠

Up next... The Gabriel Hounds!