3.5* Not my favourite of Mary Stewart’s romantic suspense novels ( )

In my quest to revisit all of Mary Stewart’s wonderful romance-mysteries, I have been delighted to find that my memory and reality are much the same. This is a fun, if simple and perhaps too predictable, a romp. I am unsure if I can put a finger on what it is about Stewart that always delights me, but it is here in spades.

Fearless heroines, handsome men waiting just in the wings at the appropriate moment, a bit of kissing on the sly, confusion and bouts of clarity, and images of handsome young men flying down mountain passes on blazing stallions. Is there something else the romantic voyeur could desire? Mix that with Stewart’s considerable descriptive talents and you have a bit of magic. At least, I find it so. ( )

Meh. Not her best work. Touch Not the Cat was better.

The writing was flowery, which is common for the period it was written, but it's really flowery. And heavy on the exposition.

The plot itself felt half done; everything moves fast and I don't think the timeline was more than 48 hours (so much exposition!), but it is extremely linear. No red herrings, so suspect pool, do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars. But what was there was interesting enough to keep me reading, and there wasn't anything I hated (except the tedious exposition). I just didn't much care about it one way or the other by the end.

The romance... eh, not worth mentioning.

They can't all be winners, and at least this wasn't a total loser. ( )

Artist Jennifer Silver has come to the picturesque, secluded Valley of the Storms in the French Pyrenees to meet with a young cousin who is about to enter the convent there -- only to discover that the young woman has died in a dreadful car accident. Or did she? ( )

2020 reread:
This book was not really the best one of Stewart's for me to reread just after finishing "Melmoth the Wanderer" what with the Catholic convent and the evil Spanish bursar Doña Francisco! But once I got involved in the story, I was caught up once again. Romantic suspense, in typical 1960s fashion without the overt sex that is now so common. ( )