On her latest Forgotten Classics podcast my friend Julie Davis has an excerpt from a 1962 novel by Mary Stewart called The Moon-spinners.
Young, beautiful and adventurous, Nicola Ferris loves her life as a secretary at the British Embassy on the lush island of Crete. Then, on her day off, she links up with two hiking companions who have inadvertently stumbled upon a scene of blood vengeance. And suddenly the life Nicola adores is in danger of coming to an abrupt, brutal, and terrifying end…
Wikipedia says Stewart is one of the founders of the “romantic suspense subgenre” which blends romance with mystery. She also wrote a bunch of King Arthur/Merlin novels. Chivers Audio (now called BBC Audiobooks) recorded a bunch of unabridged Mary Stewart novels back in the 1980s and 1990s, they’re rather hard to find now and quite collectible.
Going back to the podcast – I always dig Julie’s picks as they’re typically something I’ve never read and at the same time well worth reading. The one drawback, her podcasts tend to make me hungry. Have a listen |MP3|.
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Posted by Jesse Willis
Well THAT was a nice surprise! Thanks for the shout out, Jesse! :-)
Thank you so much for introducing a new audience to my favorite author, Mary Stewart. I mourned on May 9, 2014, when Mary Stewart died, and still mourn her loss. I am glad that recently some of her suspense novels have been put out as Audibles (though I miss the original narrators from the CDs/cassettes). I’m hoping The Moon-Spinners will be released as an Audible, too. I wish Hodder and Stoughton had allowed you to narrate the entire book. (BTW: “The Prince and the Pilgrim” is a stand-alone novel, not part of the Merlin Quartet. Also, Georgette Heyer is pronounced Georgette Hair. It was the Heyer family’s re-imagined pronunciation of their name.) Thank you so much.
Lori – I also have recently noticed Audible having a few of the Mary Stewart books available which is nice. I learned how to pronounce Heyer much later … totally opposite to how Americans interpret it! :-)