I do love Mary Stewart’s books for nice tingly tension and fast pace and a great dramatic story, so I am very much looking forward to reading this one too, I feel her books are always a guaranteed good read.
I do love Mary Stewart’s books for nice tingly tension and fast pace and a great dramatic story, so I am very much looking forward to reading this one too, I feel her books are always a guaranteed good read.
Linda Martin becomes governess to Philippe, who is heir to a vast estate in France. She begins to suspect that someone is trying to kill Philippe, although is undecided in her suspicions of who is trying to harm him as there are several menacing characters at the chateau, but she is determined to try and keep him safe. Hmmm, I am intrigued why Linda has concealed that she could speak fluent French, I wonder if it is an instinct to keep a part of herself private, as perhaps with her growing up in the orphanage she had little privacy and so it now came naturally to her to hold something back. But this concealment also allows her (and us!) to effectively ‘eavesdrop’ on people’s conversations, which makes her uncomfortable but she realises it is now too late to come clean and tell the truth. And I sense this ability to hear what she is not supposed to hear will become extremely useful as the book goes on!
Philippe is master and owner of the chateau and estate but is only aged nine so is actually powerless in the running of it. His uncle, Leon, runs the chateau and estate but doesn’t have power overall due to not being the owner and being disabled, but he acts and seems to believe like he has overall power, he is very intimidating, seemingly powerless in his wheelchair but clearly not powerless or diminished in personality or determination. Leon’s wife seems in awe of him, and Philippe is just plain scared of him. Oooh, Linda is there in the middle of all this interesting mix of personalities and power in the chateau, intimidated but fascinated by and slightly charmed by Leon, and sympathetic and friendly and caring to Philippe. I wonder if this is going to be a Turn of the Screw type book, with the governess caught between the powerful adults and the child she is employed to serve and protect. I also like the couple of references to Jane Eyre and Thornfield.
Linda meets Leon’s son Raoul, but wonders if she can trust him. She also meets an Englishman, William Blake, who she feels she can trust. Then Philippe is shot at in the woods, and she becomes certain that there is a definite threat to his life. She runs away with Philippe and they are chased through the area, culminating in a dramatic car chase and the discovery that Raoul is a goodie after all. Wow, the tension built so dramatically and the menace was so overwhelming that I just couldn’t put this book down and raced through it. I feel I will have to read it again now more slowly in order to take in all the details I missed! I was kind of hoping Linda would end up with the William Blake though, not Raoul.
I do love Mary Stewart’s books and I’ve only read a few of her large collection (I have several on my bookshelves waiting to be read, including The Gabriel Hounds and The Wind off the Small Isles). And this book has also made me feel tempted to re-read The Turn of the Screw by Henry James as it reminded me a bit of that book, and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte with the mentions of that book in this one.
