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The Ivy Tree
An English June in the Roman Wall countryside; the ruin of a beautiful old house standing cheek-by-jowl with the solid, sunlit prosperity of the manor farm - a lovely place, and a rich inheritance for one of the two remaining Winslow heirs. There had been a third, but Annabel Winslow had died four years ago - so when a young woman calling herself Annabel Winslow comes 'home' to Whitescar, Con Winslow and his half-sister Lisa must find out whether she really is who she says she is.
404 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1961
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About the author
Mary Stewart
92 books2,849 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Lady Mary Stewart, born Mary Florence Elinor Rainbow, was a popular English novelist, and taught at the school of John Norquay elementary for 30 to 35 years.
She was one of the most widely read fiction writers of our time. The author of twenty novels, a volume of poetry, and three books for young readers, she was admired for both her contemporary stories of romantic suspense and her historical novels. Born in England, she lived for many years in Scotland, spending time between Edinburgh and the West Highlands.
Her unofficial fan site can be found at http://marystewartnovels.blogspot.com/.
Lady Mary Stewart, born Mary Florence Elinor Rainbow, was a popular English novelist, and taught at the school of John Norquay elementary for 30 to 35 years.
She was one of the most widely read fiction writers of our time. The author of twenty novels, a volume of poetry, and three books for young readers, she was admired for both her contemporary stories of romantic suspense and her historical novels. Born in England, she lived for many years in Scotland, spending time between Edinburgh and the West Highlands.
Her unofficial fan site can be found at http://marystewartnovels.blogspot.com/.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 696 reviews
February 28, 2018
Deception and hidden identity are at the heart of this 1961 Mary Stewart novel. Mary Gray travels from Canada to Northumberland in northern England.
There she's accosted on Hadrian's wall, in the middle of nowhere, by an extremely handsome but very hostile guy, Con Winslow. Con is certain that she's his long-lost relative, Annabel Winslow, and threatens her. Once she convinces him that she's not Annabel, it occurs to Con that it would be very useful to him to have Mary pretend to be Annabel, who disappeared eight years ago and is believed to be dead, in order to fool Annabel's ailing grandfather into willing the Winslow property and money to the false "Annabel," if not to Con himself. Mary, destitute and at loose ends, agrees to the impersonation plot. And so begins a dangerous deception, soon complicated by the arrival of a neighbor, Adam, with whom Annabel had fallen in love so many years ago.
The ivy tree of the title is an old oak tree on the Winslow property that is covered with ivy:
It's an interesting image, reflective of all of the layers of deceit and selfish desires in this book. It's also the place where Annabel and her former love Adam--who was married at the time--used to leave love letters for each other. Interesting connection.
**major spoilers behind the tags**
The romance in this one is a little out of the norm, and not the easiest one in the world to root for.
There are some great suspenseful scenes in this book, and some delightful moments with cats and kittens. In one of my favorite scenes, Mary is chatting with her cousin’s boyfriend, Donald, who has been surreptitiously feeding pieces of sandwiches to a cat hiding under his chair.
This isn't my favorite of Mary Stewart's novels; the love interest and romance are probably my least favorite from Stewart's romantic suspense novels . But if you like old-fashioned suspense novels or Mary Stewart, it's definitely worth reading.
3.75 stars. Buddy read/reread with the Mary Stewart group.
ETA: A word of warning: major spoilers in the discussion thread to this review, not tagged.
There she's accosted on Hadrian's wall, in the middle of nowhere, by an extremely handsome but very hostile guy, Con Winslow. Con is certain that she's his long-lost relative, Annabel Winslow, and threatens her. Once she convinces him that she's not Annabel, it occurs to Con that it would be very useful to him to have Mary pretend to be Annabel, who disappeared eight years ago and is believed to be dead, in order to fool Annabel's ailing grandfather into willing the Winslow property and money to the false "Annabel," if not to Con himself. Mary, destitute and at loose ends, agrees to the impersonation plot. And so begins a dangerous deception, soon complicated by the arrival of a neighbor, Adam, with whom Annabel had fallen in love so many years ago.
The ivy tree of the title is an old oak tree on the Winslow property that is covered with ivy:
Here a giant oak stood. It had been originally on the inside of the wall, but with the years it had grown and spread, pressing closer and ever closer to the masonry . . . But the power of the oak would be its undoing, for the wall had been clothed in ivy, and the ivy had reached for the tree, crept up it, engulfed it, till now the trunk was one towering mass of the dark gleaming leaves, and only the tree's upper branches managed to thrust the young gold leaves of early summer through the strangling curtain. Eventually the ivy would kill it. . .
I looked up at it for a long time.
It's an interesting image, reflective of all of the layers of deceit and selfish desires in this book. It's also the place where Annabel and her former love Adam--who was married at the time--used to leave love letters for each other. Interesting connection.
**major spoilers behind the tags**
The romance in this one is a little out of the norm, and not the easiest one in the world to root for.
There are some great suspenseful scenes in this book, and some delightful moments with cats and kittens. In one of my favorite scenes, Mary is chatting with her cousin’s boyfriend, Donald, who has been surreptitiously feeding pieces of sandwiches to a cat hiding under his chair.
Beside me, the skirts of Donald’s chair began to shake in a frustrated fashion. I said gently, “Won’t you have another sandwich, Mr. Seton. These are crab. They — er, they go down rather well.”Mary Stewart doesn't write the most complex or difficult to solve mysteries in the world, but her writing is so lovely that her fans don't really mind that much. You read her books more for the gorgeous, detailed descriptions of far-off places, the delightful doses of dry humor, the heart-stopping suspense, and the well-read and intrepid heroes and heroines.
I saw the glimmer in his eyes as he took one. Half a minute later I saw the paw field a piece, very smartly, and, in a matter of three-quarters of a second, come out for more. Tommy, flown with good living, was getting reckless.
“You’re not eating anything,” said Lisa to me. “Have another sandwich. There’s one left—“
Even as she turned to look, the paw shot out, and the last of the crab sandwiches vanished, whole, from the plate on the bottom tier of the cart.
“I’m so sorry,” said Donald, blandly, to me. “I took it myself. Have a macaroon.”
This isn't my favorite of Mary Stewart's novels; the love interest and romance are probably my least favorite from Stewart's romantic suspense novels . But if you like old-fashioned suspense novels or Mary Stewart, it's definitely worth reading.
3.75 stars. Buddy read/reread with the Mary Stewart group.
ETA: A word of warning: major spoilers in the discussion thread to this review, not tagged.
August 25, 2019
I have been thinking about this book this morning & my star rating veered all over the place until I finally settled on a four.
There is a lot to love about this book, especially the descriptions of scenery & mystery. & it was a page turner that kept me interested until the end. While I wasn't sure who the heroine really was till near the finish, I also wasn't sure who the love interest was - the romance was sparse, even by Stewart's standards. In fact, two of the secondary characters have a more interesting romance & I was more interested in it's outcome.
As always with Stewart there is another character in the book.
Fortunately he didn't appear as much later in the book. At one stage I was wondering how Mary/Anabel could even see where she was going through the constant haze of smoke!
&
Reread 18/9/17. I reread this book directly after finishing Brat Farrar The Ivy Tree is inspired by Brat Farrar, but Brat Farrar is definitely the superior book. There was never a part of Brat Farrar where I was bored, whereas there are a couple of lulls in this book. & I found the actions & motivation of the female lead often quite inexplicable. Still a wonderful read though!
There is a lot to love about this book, especially the descriptions of scenery & mystery. & it was a page turner that kept me interested until the end. While I wasn't sure who the heroine really was till near the finish, I also wasn't sure who the love interest was - the romance was sparse, even by Stewart's standards. In fact, two of the secondary characters have a more interesting romance & I was more interested in it's outcome.
As always with Stewart there is another character in the book.
Fortunately he didn't appear as much later in the book. At one stage I was wondering how Mary/Anabel could even see where she was going through the constant haze of smoke!
&
Reread 18/9/17. I reread this book directly after finishing Brat Farrar The Ivy Tree is inspired by Brat Farrar, but Brat Farrar is definitely the superior book. There was never a part of Brat Farrar where I was bored, whereas there are a couple of lulls in this book. & I found the actions & motivation of the female lead often quite inexplicable. Still a wonderful read though!
August 5, 2021
I thoroughly enjoyed this blast from the past. It was originally published in 1961, so when Mary Stewart describes Annabel and Adam as being former "lovers," that is as much detail the reader ever receives about their relationship. How far did they go, you keep asking yourself? Adam was a married man, willing to risk everything for her. How could something so wrong, be so right - right? Wrong! One fateful night, Annabel is given an ultimatum by Adam, and her cousin Con also shows his hand in his dicey game to win Whitescar for his very own. Annabel disappears that very night.
Eight years have passed and, once again, there is intrigue afoot. Has the real Annabel Winslow returned to reclaim her future inheritance, or is she an imposter?
So much has changed: Annabel's Grandfather is dying, her young cousin Julie is in love and ready to leave Whitescar, and Con, their unscrupulous Irish cousin, still believes that he is entitled to the Whitescar estate.
But has Annabel stopped loving Adam? That scene in the woods where the two lovers meet again after such a long absence was one of the most passionate scenes I've ever read in a Mary Stewart novel. I was a great fan of Mary Stewart's writing back in my teens. Her writing is so vivid and lyrical. Here is one example that captures the essence of her style:
"I sat there, eyes shut, and remembered, in the warm green-and-blue silence. Not a lamb called; the curlews were silent; there was no breeze to stir the grasses, and the bees had gone home from the thyme. It might have been the world before life began, and I might have been the first and only woman in it, sitting there dreaming of Adam...."
As I was reading this, I kept thinking that this novel was a bit over the top, even a tad risque for staid Mary Stewart, but what I also found refreshing was the excellent grammar. When I would read passages such as "there could be nothing between him and me, " I just about wept with relief. It has been so many years since I've seen the correct objective case used with a preposition. I get that people don't memorize things anymore, but if you are a writer, then it is part of your job to brush up on a few rules of grammar, no?
But apart from the excellent writing, this was a riveting read, with all the twists you could ever wish for! Highly recommended!
Eight years have passed and, once again, there is intrigue afoot. Has the real Annabel Winslow returned to reclaim her future inheritance, or is she an imposter?
So much has changed: Annabel's Grandfather is dying, her young cousin Julie is in love and ready to leave Whitescar, and Con, their unscrupulous Irish cousin, still believes that he is entitled to the Whitescar estate.
But has Annabel stopped loving Adam? That scene in the woods where the two lovers meet again after such a long absence was one of the most passionate scenes I've ever read in a Mary Stewart novel. I was a great fan of Mary Stewart's writing back in my teens. Her writing is so vivid and lyrical. Here is one example that captures the essence of her style:
"I sat there, eyes shut, and remembered, in the warm green-and-blue silence. Not a lamb called; the curlews were silent; there was no breeze to stir the grasses, and the bees had gone home from the thyme. It might have been the world before life began, and I might have been the first and only woman in it, sitting there dreaming of Adam...."
As I was reading this, I kept thinking that this novel was a bit over the top, even a tad risque for staid Mary Stewart, but what I also found refreshing was the excellent grammar. When I would read passages such as "there could be nothing between him and me, " I just about wept with relief. It has been so many years since I've seen the correct objective case used with a preposition. I get that people don't memorize things anymore, but if you are a writer, then it is part of your job to brush up on a few rules of grammar, no?
But apart from the excellent writing, this was a riveting read, with all the twists you could ever wish for! Highly recommended!
June 19, 2020
i admit i have a weakness for all that wuthers, so i really enjoyed this. it's got everything you need to make your own gothic romance playset, so it's a little predictable, but it's a quick read and perfectly acceptable (i.e. not to be ashamed of)escapist fiction. plus, they reissued them in these nice trees-and-moors covers, which means the old, bad romance-looking ones are gone for good. when i was reading that damn nora roberts book for school, i was very much aware of its physical presence. i don't have a very big embarrassment-button, but there was something about reading it in public that added a layer onto the experience of it, because i am not usually aware of how i am perceived unless i am acting in a completely unacceptable way (and i have also a broad tolerance for what is acceptable)but i felt watched and judged - which i know was completely in my mind. but i felt like observers were clucking their tongues "that poor girl isn't getting any and is compensating by reading romance novels. how said. and so young." don't worry about me, strangers, i do all right.
come to my blog!
come to my blog!
January 16, 2013
This book came up in conversation a few months back. I am big fan of the old Gothic romances and collect them . I was positive I didn't have this one though. But, to my surprise I found a copy on a top shelf of my bookcase.
It was just a coincidence that I had just finished Tana French's "The Likeness" right before I started this one. Both books deal with a woman attempted to pull off impersonating someone.
Other than that the two books aren't alike. But, it does show how ahead of her time Mary Stewart was. This book spent five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list back in the early 1970's.
Mary Grey bears a striking resemblence to a young woman named Annabelle that has been presumed dead for the past eight years. Annabelle's cousin, Con, sees Mary while she is on a walk and presumed she was Annabelle. Once they cleared up the fact that she was not, Con's sister, Lisa shows up at Mary's work to get a look at her. Lisa convinces Mary to come to the Winslow estate and pretend to be Annabelle. Why? Annabelle's grandfather is in ill health. He has refused to believe that Annabelle is dead. So, Annabelle is still the heir to the estate. In that case,when the old man dies, another cousin, Julie will have control over the estate and she is only nineteen and not all that interested. Con has been running the estate for the last eight years. So, what would be the harm in Mary claiming the estate and then signing it over to Con?
Once Mary arrives at the estate though she begins to have second thoughts. Con convinces her to stay though and Mary becomes Annabelle.
Of course Annabelle had a history that no one knew about,which could blow their fraud out of the water, and despite the prodigal granddaughter's return, the grandfather is waffling about the will.
What really happened eight years ago that made Annabelle run away? What are Con and Lisa's real motives and what lengths will they go to so see Con as the sole heir to the estate?
This is Gothic mystery/romance at it's finest. Mary Stewart's writing style is lush . The story is quite absorbing. Perhaps a little tribute the Daphne Du Maurier style.
Mary Stewart's influence still shows through in the modern romantic suspense novels, even though her novels relied less the romance and put more emphasis on characterization and plotting.
Although this book was published in 1972, it isn't dated so much that the fan of mysteries and romantic suspense couldn't enjoy it today. I don't think you would have an awful amount of difficulty finding a copy of this book on Amazon or Ebay.
Overall this one gets an A.
It was just a coincidence that I had just finished Tana French's "The Likeness" right before I started this one. Both books deal with a woman attempted to pull off impersonating someone.
Other than that the two books aren't alike. But, it does show how ahead of her time Mary Stewart was. This book spent five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list back in the early 1970's.
Mary Grey bears a striking resemblence to a young woman named Annabelle that has been presumed dead for the past eight years. Annabelle's cousin, Con, sees Mary while she is on a walk and presumed she was Annabelle. Once they cleared up the fact that she was not, Con's sister, Lisa shows up at Mary's work to get a look at her. Lisa convinces Mary to come to the Winslow estate and pretend to be Annabelle. Why? Annabelle's grandfather is in ill health. He has refused to believe that Annabelle is dead. So, Annabelle is still the heir to the estate. In that case,when the old man dies, another cousin, Julie will have control over the estate and she is only nineteen and not all that interested. Con has been running the estate for the last eight years. So, what would be the harm in Mary claiming the estate and then signing it over to Con?
Once Mary arrives at the estate though she begins to have second thoughts. Con convinces her to stay though and Mary becomes Annabelle.
Of course Annabelle had a history that no one knew about,which could blow their fraud out of the water, and despite the prodigal granddaughter's return, the grandfather is waffling about the will.
What really happened eight years ago that made Annabelle run away? What are Con and Lisa's real motives and what lengths will they go to so see Con as the sole heir to the estate?
This is Gothic mystery/romance at it's finest. Mary Stewart's writing style is lush . The story is quite absorbing. Perhaps a little tribute the Daphne Du Maurier style.
Mary Stewart's influence still shows through in the modern romantic suspense novels, even though her novels relied less the romance and put more emphasis on characterization and plotting.
Although this book was published in 1972, it isn't dated so much that the fan of mysteries and romantic suspense couldn't enjoy it today. I don't think you would have an awful amount of difficulty finding a copy of this book on Amazon or Ebay.
Overall this one gets an A.
September 1, 2019
the Northumberland countryside is windswept and stark, beautiful and craggy and treacherous, trees ready to fall, paths to get lost on, cliffs to be tossed from. the heroine is frustrating: her mind moves back and forth, in the plan and then out of it, untrustworthy, uttering apologies of the "I'm just being womanish" sort. the handsome young Irishman is a violent boor, easily capable of laying hands on a woman, bending people and the world to his rigid, greedy plans. the mystery overlaps with other mysteries - mysteries of identity, acceptance, running away from problems and returning to step back into them. the romance is nonexistent, until suddenly it is not. Stewart writes a tricky narrative where past is present, one that's hard to untangle, characters hard to trust, until suddenly there is no tangle and characters are completely understandable. the arrival of clarity, following an exciting morning horse ride (Stewart loves her horses!) made for a breathtaking scene. I didn't find this book or its characters to be particularly likable, but the story compels and of course drips with atmosphere. I heard the wind moaning, I woke up to the too-bright sunlight, I inhaled the sweat dripping off of horse and man, I gazed at the world from cliffside along with the heroine, wondering where all of these lies would lead.
January 19, 2018
I was so enamored of Mary Stewart’s writing when I was a teenager that I would hide when I read them so that I could pretend not to hear my older sister calling me to do chores. I am almost that enchanted with them this second time around, but it is now a husband who keeps trying to pry me away.
The Ivy Tree can easily be placed among my favorites of the mystery/romances. It is complicated enough to keep you guessing and every time you think you have figured it out for sure, Mary Stewart makes you guess again. It is based on a fairly common device, the virtual twin stranger who impersonates the real heiress, but while the device might be common the writing and the deft handling of the situation is not. On a trip to Northumberland, Mary Grey of Canada is assailed by a handsome, but somewhat frightening, Connor Winslow, who mistakes her for his cousin, Annabel, who has been missing and believed dead for some eight years. At loose ends and down on her luck, Mary is persuaded to impersonate the aforesaid Annabel and help Connor get the inheritance he is (in his eyes) entitled to.
What ensues is a thrilling, twisting ride in the style that only Mary Stewart can conjure. Few writers can engage all the senses in their writing, but for me Mary Stewart does this consistently.
I was very still. Close overhead I heard the scratch and rattle on the sloping roof tiles, then the throaty murmur as the pigeons settled back again to sleep. From the garden below came the smell of lilac. A moth fluttered past my cheek, and a bat cut the clear sky like a knife. Down in the neglected garden-grass the black and white cat crouched, tail whipping, then sprang. Something screamed in the grass.
And, one might certainly think of Mary Stewart’s work as more fun than thought, but I find that is a deception. She peppers her work with literary allusions, thoughtful humor, and tidbits of wisdom.
People ought to avoid pain if they can, like disease...but if they have to stand it, its best use might be that it makes them kinder. I think that is a pretty astute observation.
There are a couple of incidents in this novel involving a cat that I truly delighted in. They made the book stand apart for me as being quite special. Who doesn’t love an author who shows an affinity with the animal kingdom, and the quickest way to make me trust a character is make him kind to animals. Which might explain why I was so taken with a fairly minor character, by name of Donald Seton, who added warmth, humor, steadiness and dignity to the tale.
Finally, there is the symbolism of the Ivy Tree itself, a prodigious oak that has been suffocated by the parasitic ivy that covers it. A thing that is beautiful on the outside, but rotten within (like a certain character in this book), evidence that something that appears strong may just be a crumbling weakness, and a reminder that love and desires that cannot be shown publicly, but must be hidden away, can be dangerous.
In my quest to re-read all the Mary Stewart canon, I am glad I did not miss The Ivy Tree. If I were stranded on a desert island with a trunk containing all the works of only two authors, knowing I would have to read them over and over again for the rest of my life, I might well pick Shakespeare and Mary Stewart and be a happy camper.
The Ivy Tree can easily be placed among my favorites of the mystery/romances. It is complicated enough to keep you guessing and every time you think you have figured it out for sure, Mary Stewart makes you guess again. It is based on a fairly common device, the virtual twin stranger who impersonates the real heiress, but while the device might be common the writing and the deft handling of the situation is not. On a trip to Northumberland, Mary Grey of Canada is assailed by a handsome, but somewhat frightening, Connor Winslow, who mistakes her for his cousin, Annabel, who has been missing and believed dead for some eight years. At loose ends and down on her luck, Mary is persuaded to impersonate the aforesaid Annabel and help Connor get the inheritance he is (in his eyes) entitled to.
What ensues is a thrilling, twisting ride in the style that only Mary Stewart can conjure. Few writers can engage all the senses in their writing, but for me Mary Stewart does this consistently.
I was very still. Close overhead I heard the scratch and rattle on the sloping roof tiles, then the throaty murmur as the pigeons settled back again to sleep. From the garden below came the smell of lilac. A moth fluttered past my cheek, and a bat cut the clear sky like a knife. Down in the neglected garden-grass the black and white cat crouched, tail whipping, then sprang. Something screamed in the grass.
And, one might certainly think of Mary Stewart’s work as more fun than thought, but I find that is a deception. She peppers her work with literary allusions, thoughtful humor, and tidbits of wisdom.
People ought to avoid pain if they can, like disease...but if they have to stand it, its best use might be that it makes them kinder. I think that is a pretty astute observation.
There are a couple of incidents in this novel involving a cat that I truly delighted in. They made the book stand apart for me as being quite special. Who doesn’t love an author who shows an affinity with the animal kingdom, and the quickest way to make me trust a character is make him kind to animals. Which might explain why I was so taken with a fairly minor character, by name of Donald Seton, who added warmth, humor, steadiness and dignity to the tale.
Finally, there is the symbolism of the Ivy Tree itself, a prodigious oak that has been suffocated by the parasitic ivy that covers it. A thing that is beautiful on the outside, but rotten within (like a certain character in this book), evidence that something that appears strong may just be a crumbling weakness, and a reminder that love and desires that cannot be shown publicly, but must be hidden away, can be dangerous.
In my quest to re-read all the Mary Stewart canon, I am glad I did not miss The Ivy Tree. If I were stranded on a desert island with a trunk containing all the works of only two authors, knowing I would have to read them over and over again for the rest of my life, I might well pick Shakespeare and Mary Stewart and be a happy camper.
January 20, 2015
This might well be the most cleverly and tightly plotted of all Mary Stewart's romance-mystery novels and--alone among her novels--this is the only one with a seemingly unreliable narrator. When we first meet Mary Grey, she is enjoying the early morning sun and (of course!) having a smoke in the fine spring air near Hadrian's Wall.
The second hand smoke doesn't seem to bother the lambs.
What I loved most was the skill with which Mary Stewart kept me in suspense about who Mary really is while leading me to sometimes sympathize and sometimes doubt her integrity and kind heart. I instinctively liked Mary--but did I dare trust her?
Then there was the handsome Irish cousin and various other love interests who wander over the horizons. Can they be trusted? Who should I root for?
The plot thickens as more 'family' members appear--an ailing grandfather with land and money to pass on, a poor relation with a jealous eye, a cousin with her own love problems, various sharp-eyed gossipy villagers, and a long lost....well I won't say anymore about that.
Along the way, there are gardens and wild flower filled meadows (of course!)
And a horse that may be too wild for anyone but a 'horse whisperer' to handle.
It's all great fun and I loved every minute of the book and my time spent with my buddy reading friends at GR!
The second hand smoke doesn't seem to bother the lambs.
What I loved most was the skill with which Mary Stewart kept me in suspense about who Mary really is while leading me to sometimes sympathize and sometimes doubt her integrity and kind heart. I instinctively liked Mary--but did I dare trust her?
Then there was the handsome Irish cousin and various other love interests who wander over the horizons. Can they be trusted? Who should I root for?
The plot thickens as more 'family' members appear--an ailing grandfather with land and money to pass on, a poor relation with a jealous eye, a cousin with her own love problems, various sharp-eyed gossipy villagers, and a long lost....well I won't say anymore about that.
Along the way, there are gardens and wild flower filled meadows (of course!)
And a horse that may be too wild for anyone but a 'horse whisperer' to handle.
It's all great fun and I loved every minute of the book and my time spent with my buddy reading friends at GR!
April 20, 2013
I’ve been kind of putting off writing a review for this. I guess it’s because I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as the other Stewart books I’ve read. There was no exciting car chases or exotic locations. The hero was a real dud for me. I always felt like the author was holding information back, which always sends out lots of flags. You can always see that there is going be a big twist at the end when information is being withheld, especially when it’s in first person.
That’s not to say it was bad. As always, Mary Stewart writes wonderfully. The ending was exciting and the book had a nice gothy atmosphere to it.
I’m giving The Ivy Tree ***½ stars. After all, most Mary Stewart books are better than your average mystery. I just wasn’t as captivated by any of the characters. I was kind of disappointed. I guess I'm longing for the fifties movie type feel I got with Madam Will You Talk. James Mason wasn't in this and I missed him. :(
*sigh*
That’s not to say it was bad. As always, Mary Stewart writes wonderfully. The ending was exciting and the book had a nice gothy atmosphere to it.
I’m giving The Ivy Tree ***½ stars. After all, most Mary Stewart books are better than your average mystery. I just wasn’t as captivated by any of the characters. I was kind of disappointed. I guess I'm longing for the fifties movie type feel I got with Madam Will You Talk. James Mason wasn't in this and I missed him. :(
*sigh*
October 11, 2017
While not my personal favorite in the Stewart pantheon, The Ivy Tree is still a well executed and cleverly plotted suspense novel from the queen of romantic suspense, and deserves every one of my 4 stars. It's been a while since I first read this, so while I remembered the main jist of the story for this re-read, there was even more I had forgotten, which was ok.
It's hard to review this book, because to say almost anything about the plot or the characters might spoil the tale for new-comers. So, I'll only say that it's a twisty, complicated story about a girl who may or may not be all she claims, a hot-tempered man who may or may not be our hero, an ivy tree (well duh), an old wall named "Hadrian" (:D), a cat who likes crab sandwiches (who doesn't?), a horse , and an old house up for grabs.
As to the rest, you'll just have to pick this one up and discover its secrets for yourself. Be alert. Be vigilant. All will be revealed and wrapped up very nicely by the end. And if you're like some readers of this particular Stewart novel, you might find yourself turning back to Chapter One after reading "The End". Yes, it's that kind of book...
Mary Stewart Group Read in April, 2013
It's hard to review this book, because to say almost anything about the plot or the characters might spoil the tale for new-comers. So, I'll only say that it's a twisty, complicated story about a girl who may or may not be all she claims, a hot-tempered man who may or may not be our hero, an ivy tree (well duh), an old wall named "Hadrian" (:D), a cat who likes crab sandwiches (who doesn't?), a horse , and an old house up for grabs.
As to the rest, you'll just have to pick this one up and discover its secrets for yourself. Be alert. Be vigilant. All will be revealed and wrapped up very nicely by the end. And if you're like some readers of this particular Stewart novel, you might find yourself turning back to Chapter One after reading "The End". Yes, it's that kind of book...
Mary Stewart Group Read in April, 2013
December 30, 2017
I read this the first time in junior high. I had discovered her books through the Moonspinners, first on the Wonderful World of Disney, with Hayley Mills and the lovely Peter McEnery, upon whom I had a crush. Movie was fun, but the books, oh, the books...with those I have had a life-long love affair. After I tracked down the aforementioned book, I discovered some very unprepossessing looking books on my mother’s bookshelves which turned out to be several more of Mary Stewart’s novels, including this one. I was in heaven.
I have read and re-read these books over these years for comfort, and they have seen me through some tough times. I just read Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey, to which Mary Stewart alludes in this novel, and the combination of suspense and horses is heavenly. I spent my waking moments riding and and reading as a girl and young woman, and these stories speak to me still. All I need is to watch the movie The List of Adrian Messenger and my day will be perfect.
Very highly recommended.
I have read and re-read these books over these years for comfort, and they have seen me through some tough times. I just read Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey, to which Mary Stewart alludes in this novel, and the combination of suspense and horses is heavenly. I spent my waking moments riding and and reading as a girl and young woman, and these stories speak to me still. All I need is to watch the movie The List of Adrian Messenger and my day will be perfect.
Very highly recommended.
March 13, 2023
I was very concerned about this one, because right as I started reading I saw a review from a friend saying it's her least favorite of all Stewart's mysteries, because she saw the big twist coming and it was the Worst Thing Ever. And I spent the whole book worrying that what I imagined was the worst thing ever (for this book) was going to happen. It did not. The twists (more than one), were things I thought might happen, but I was still pleasantly surprised by them. I think this had some of her most tense plotting, and some of her more interesting characters. Sometimes the male leads blur together a bit, but these were all quite distinct and interesting.
April 12, 2013
This is the third novel by Mary Stewart I’ve read in the past few months and my least favourite so far. It lacks in a number of departments. Firstly, although the novel is nominally set around Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland, the setting could just as easily have been any rural England location with horses. Some early references to the Wall and a theme involving a search for Roman ruins provide the totality of the Northumberland scene setting. While the descriptive writing is excellent, it doesn’t evoke a strong sense of place in the same way as the south of France is evoked in Madam, Will You Talk? or Corfu is evoked in This Rough Magic. Thirdly, while the action appears to take place around the time the novel was published (that is, in 1961), there is little in the text to place it within that time period, with the notable exceptions of a heroine who smokes like a chimney and some very dubious gender politics. Thirdly, the characters are two-dimensional and I found it difficult to care about any of them, other than a secondary character, Donald, of whom I wish I had seen more. Fourthly, the twist in the tale was, I thought, patently obvious from early on. I kept hoping that I was wrong about this and I expected some other twist, but it never came. For me, the twist was that there wasn’t actually a twist. In a way, Stewart hid everything in plain sight, which is clever writing, but not clever enough to overcome my disappointment with the predictability of the plot.
Although I’ve focused on the negatives, I don’t wish to imply that I disliked reading the novel. It was an easy and entertaining read and deserves its 3 stars. I particularly enjoyed enjoyed reading it with Jemidar and lots of others in the Mary Stewart Group. However, I prefer Josephine Tey’s Brat Farrar, which is referred to in the narrative and which clearly gave Stewart plenty of inspiration. The plot in that novel is just as predictable, but the psychological portrait of the central character makes it considerably more interesting.
May 14, 2016
If you were asked to step into someone else's shoes; BE that person, could you do it? Would you do it? This was Mary Grey's first dilemma, one which she resolved by agreeing to the plot suggested by a strange woman she talked with in the town of Newcastle. But is the plan really as simple as it seems? Is Mary Grey who she says she is? Is Connor nothing more than a darkly handsome stranger or something quite different? What exactly is an ivy tree? And, most importantly, is scene-stealing Tommy really Tommy?!
I had great fun with this book. I am so glad to have rediscovered Mary Stewart! This one has earned second-favorite status. I was caught up in the story from the first page, and had fun making guesses about who was who all the way through to the Big Reveal, besides holding my breath more than once after that. Don't skip this one!!
I had great fun with this book. I am so glad to have rediscovered Mary Stewart! This one has earned second-favorite status. I was caught up in the story from the first page, and had fun making guesses about who was who all the way through to the Big Reveal, besides holding my breath more than once after that. Don't skip this one!!
July 6, 2012
Where is Alfred Hitchcock when you need him? I think this book would have been right up his alley and would have made a marvelous movie under his direction.
I absolutely loved it. How could you not when there were passages like this:
The kitchen was a big, pleasant room, with a high ceiling, a new cream-coloured Aga stove, and long curtains that stirred in the June breeze. The floor was of red tiles, covered with those bright rugs of hooked rag that make Northern kitchens so attractive. In front of the Aga was an old-fashioned fender of polished steel, and inside it, from a basket covered with flannel, came the soft cheepings of newly hatched chickens. The black and white cat asleep in the rocking chair took no notice of the sounds, or of the tempting heavings and buttings of small heads and bodies against the covering flannel.
Mary Stewart excels in creating atmosphere to the point where you are there. The characters were all well done as was and the story with a few twists and turns along the way. Some I guessed, some not.
All in all, this was a wonderful read for any number of reasons. It certainly took me away like no Calgon ever could!
I absolutely loved it. How could you not when there were passages like this:
The kitchen was a big, pleasant room, with a high ceiling, a new cream-coloured Aga stove, and long curtains that stirred in the June breeze. The floor was of red tiles, covered with those bright rugs of hooked rag that make Northern kitchens so attractive. In front of the Aga was an old-fashioned fender of polished steel, and inside it, from a basket covered with flannel, came the soft cheepings of newly hatched chickens. The black and white cat asleep in the rocking chair took no notice of the sounds, or of the tempting heavings and buttings of small heads and bodies against the covering flannel.
Mary Stewart excels in creating atmosphere to the point where you are there. The characters were all well done as was and the story with a few twists and turns along the way. Some I guessed, some not.
All in all, this was a wonderful read for any number of reasons. It certainly took me away like no Calgon ever could!
November 17, 2019
There is a game I play when I begin a Mary Stewart novel. After the book has established the plot and the initial conflict, I make a guess as to what the twist will be. This is a fun game with no winners or losers, because if I guess correctly, I have the enjoyment of seeing the twist play out, and if I guess wrong, I get a lovely surprise.
With this book, I really wish I had been wrong.
It kills me to have to rate it this low, because this is some of Stewart's strongest writing, with both descriptive and metaphorical imagery. The characterization is very well done, particularly with young Julie, who comes on stage well before she actually arrives thanks to the descriptions of other characters. I liked the moral choice put before Mary Grey, and I liked how the romance played out.
But the twist is a damn cheat, and it makes me irritated thinking about it because Stewart only had to do one thing to make it work without being a cheat.
Here's the twist:
The reason it's a cheat is that this story is told in first person. Stewart is extremely careful not to give herself away--I went back and checked--but there is no way Mary would not have thought about the secret in all the situations where it comes up, and since it's first person, the reader should have overheard those thoughts. Instead, Mary's behavior is erratic at the times when the secret becomes an issue () and when the secret is revealed, all those erratic moments are explained as her reactions that should have been explicit thoughts visible to the reader. If Stewart had gone for a third-person POV, problem totally solved. So I'm irritated and severely disappointed.
I liked the book enough that I'll probably read it again sometime to see if I'm being too harsh. Again, Stewart really does do well at hiding the twist so far as that's possible. But having guessed what it was, saying "no, it can't work, that's not it," and then discovering I was right...I'm going to continue to go with irritation, and move on to another one, probably My Brother Michael.
With this book, I really wish I had been wrong.
It kills me to have to rate it this low, because this is some of Stewart's strongest writing, with both descriptive and metaphorical imagery. The characterization is very well done, particularly with young Julie, who comes on stage well before she actually arrives thanks to the descriptions of other characters. I liked the moral choice put before Mary Grey, and I liked how the romance played out.
But the twist is a damn cheat, and it makes me irritated thinking about it because Stewart only had to do one thing to make it work without being a cheat.
Here's the twist:
The reason it's a cheat is that this story is told in first person. Stewart is extremely careful not to give herself away--I went back and checked--but there is no way Mary would not have thought about the secret in all the situations where it comes up, and since it's first person, the reader should have overheard those thoughts. Instead, Mary's behavior is erratic at the times when the secret becomes an issue () and when the secret is revealed, all those erratic moments are explained as her reactions that should have been explicit thoughts visible to the reader. If Stewart had gone for a third-person POV, problem totally solved. So I'm irritated and severely disappointed.
I liked the book enough that I'll probably read it again sometime to see if I'm being too harsh. Again, Stewart really does do well at hiding the twist so far as that's possible. But having guessed what it was, saying "no, it can't work, that's not it," and then discovering I was right...I'm going to continue to go with irritation, and move on to another one, probably My Brother Michael.
April 16, 2013
"I might have been alone in a painted landscape. The sky was still and blue, and the high cauliflower
clouds over to the south seemed to hang without movement."
So begins this story of impersonation set in Northumberland. Mary Grey, visitor from Canada, is mistaken for the lovely Annabel Winslow who had run away to the States eight years ago. What could have sent Annabel fleeing? That is the first question of many. Mary meets Connor Winslow, cousin to Annabel, and then Con's sister, Lisa. The three of them hatch the impersonation scheme. I won't say more because just about every detail is important. I can say that this story is thrilling and a real page turner towards the end.
There are many memorable characters and Mary Stewart does a fantastic job of bringing them to life. There is humor, one particular scene with a cat named Tommy comes to mind. Stewart's descriptive prose had me chuckling. Rowan, the horse, even has a role to play. And of course there is an "ivy tree," but what role does it play?
The plot has so much more to it than first suspected. Stewart has cleverly sprinkled clues throughout and a reread is an absolute must in order to fully appreciate the genius of Mary Stewart. Immediately upon finishing, I had to go back and reread the first couple of pages. This book should have been made into a movie long ago.
clouds over to the south seemed to hang without movement."
So begins this story of impersonation set in Northumberland. Mary Grey, visitor from Canada, is mistaken for the lovely Annabel Winslow who had run away to the States eight years ago. What could have sent Annabel fleeing? That is the first question of many. Mary meets Connor Winslow, cousin to Annabel, and then Con's sister, Lisa. The three of them hatch the impersonation scheme. I won't say more because just about every detail is important. I can say that this story is thrilling and a real page turner towards the end.
There are many memorable characters and Mary Stewart does a fantastic job of bringing them to life. There is humor, one particular scene with a cat named Tommy comes to mind. Stewart's descriptive prose had me chuckling. Rowan, the horse, even has a role to play. And of course there is an "ivy tree," but what role does it play?
The plot has so much more to it than first suspected. Stewart has cleverly sprinkled clues throughout and a reread is an absolute must in order to fully appreciate the genius of Mary Stewart. Immediately upon finishing, I had to go back and reread the first couple of pages. This book should have been made into a movie long ago.
November 8, 2007
THE IVY TREE (Suspense, Mary Grey/Annabel Winslow-England-cont) - Ex
Stewart, Mary – Standalone
Hodder & Stoughton, 1961, UK Hardcover
First Sentence: I might have been alone in a painted landscape.
*** Annabel Winslow has been dead for four years. Mary Grey, over from Canada, looks enough like Annabel to be her twin. When Conner, foreman at Whitescar, stumbles upon her, it takes a bit of convincing that she is Mary. Con, and his half-sister, Lisa, work up a plan for Mary to pretend to be the missing Annabel long enough to ensure her grandfather passes the ownership of Whitescar to Con in his will. Annabel Winslow has been dead for four years. Or has she?
*** This is Mary Stewart at her very best. With lovely nods to Josephine Tey’s “Brat Farrar,” which I also loved, “The Ivy Tree” is a more complex, layered book, although the clues are there for us to find. Stewart’s characters come alive and even have reader questioning just who is Mary? There is that constant threat of danger. Her descriptions and use of imagery make me go back and re-read passages for the pure pleasure of her words. It is a story of love, loss, and hope is wonderfully timeless. Stewart is always such a pleasure to read and this is one of, if not the, best of her works.
Stewart, Mary – Standalone
Hodder & Stoughton, 1961, UK Hardcover
First Sentence: I might have been alone in a painted landscape.
*** Annabel Winslow has been dead for four years. Mary Grey, over from Canada, looks enough like Annabel to be her twin. When Conner, foreman at Whitescar, stumbles upon her, it takes a bit of convincing that she is Mary. Con, and his half-sister, Lisa, work up a plan for Mary to pretend to be the missing Annabel long enough to ensure her grandfather passes the ownership of Whitescar to Con in his will. Annabel Winslow has been dead for four years. Or has she?
*** This is Mary Stewart at her very best. With lovely nods to Josephine Tey’s “Brat Farrar,” which I also loved, “The Ivy Tree” is a more complex, layered book, although the clues are there for us to find. Stewart’s characters come alive and even have reader questioning just who is Mary? There is that constant threat of danger. Her descriptions and use of imagery make me go back and re-read passages for the pure pleasure of her words. It is a story of love, loss, and hope is wonderfully timeless. Stewart is always such a pleasure to read and this is one of, if not the, best of her works.
February 28, 2023
A solid read. Bogged down in the middle by too much dialogue, much of which was repetitive. Enjoyed the morally grey character (Mary Grey) and the typical MS exciting and dramatic ending.
August 10, 2017
This is my second Mary Stewart gothic romance. I read Nine Coaches Waiting, which seems to fairly consistently reside in one of the top spots on vintage gothic romance lists, last year, and really enjoyed it.
The difficult nature of reviewing one of these gothic romances presents itself every time I sit down to write one. Much of the enjoyment in these books resides in experiencing the twists and turns of the plot as they unfold. Like a mystery, revealing the secrets of the book really will spoil it.
I thought this book was fantastically entertaining. Mary Stewart used continual misdirection very effectively, that had me believing one thing, and then a couple of chapters later, convinced of something else. It is intricately and cleverly plotted. I was wrong, wrong, wrong, and then wrong again.
If the book has a flaw, it is that it starts slow and the twists don't start revealing themselves until the second half of the book. There is a lot of work that goes into the set-up of the plot. Once the reveals begin happening, though, it is a race to the end. I thought that Stewart's method for revealing one of the twists was particularly subtle and clever, and a bit bewildering at the beginning of the process.
So many of these stories are set in Cornwall and on the moors, that I always like to mention the setting. This one is set in Northumbria, near Newcastle, on the heath and near Hadrian's Wall. There is less use made of the setting in this book than in many, but it's a nice change from some of the more traditional locations, and the plot involves an investigation into Roman artifacts.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed The Ivy Tree, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys vintage gothic romance.
The difficult nature of reviewing one of these gothic romances presents itself every time I sit down to write one. Much of the enjoyment in these books resides in experiencing the twists and turns of the plot as they unfold. Like a mystery, revealing the secrets of the book really will spoil it.
I thought this book was fantastically entertaining. Mary Stewart used continual misdirection very effectively, that had me believing one thing, and then a couple of chapters later, convinced of something else. It is intricately and cleverly plotted. I was wrong, wrong, wrong, and then wrong again.
If the book has a flaw, it is that it starts slow and the twists don't start revealing themselves until the second half of the book. There is a lot of work that goes into the set-up of the plot. Once the reveals begin happening, though, it is a race to the end. I thought that Stewart's method for revealing one of the twists was particularly subtle and clever, and a bit bewildering at the beginning of the process.
So many of these stories are set in Cornwall and on the moors, that I always like to mention the setting. This one is set in Northumbria, near Newcastle, on the heath and near Hadrian's Wall. There is less use made of the setting in this book than in many, but it's a nice change from some of the more traditional locations, and the plot involves an investigation into Roman artifacts.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed The Ivy Tree, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys vintage gothic romance.
October 11, 2022
The Ivy Tree is a brilliant thriller, intricately plotted and full of twists. It is perhaps Mary Stewart’s most complicated novel, and it packs an emotional wallop as well.
The scene opens on one Mary Grey, from Canada but having recently traveled to the north of England. She’s up by Hadrian’s Wall when she’s accosted by a handsome man who thinks she’s someone else—someone he clearly hates enough to consider killing. This scene allows us to see our heroine as quick-witted and courageous, as she talks her way to safety. Soon, however, the tables turn and she finds herself in a wary alliance with the scary young man and impersonating the woman he thought she was. And those are just the first couple of chapters.
The impersonation is complicated and not what it appears to be; in fact, just about everyone in this story has multiple layers of deception and misrepresentation to manage, lending tension to the most ordinary encounters. The truth gets revealed bit by bit, but far from setting anyone free, it binds the characters to ever greater danger and emotional pain. There’s frustrated love of home and family, the desperate need to belong, love lost and love forfeited, and deep resentments on all sides.
Stewart juggles these complexities so deftly that I was never confused even when I was surprised. The book works you over but leaves you satisfied in the end. This is the work of a master on top of her game.
The scene opens on one Mary Grey, from Canada but having recently traveled to the north of England. She’s up by Hadrian’s Wall when she’s accosted by a handsome man who thinks she’s someone else—someone he clearly hates enough to consider killing. This scene allows us to see our heroine as quick-witted and courageous, as she talks her way to safety. Soon, however, the tables turn and she finds herself in a wary alliance with the scary young man and impersonating the woman he thought she was. And those are just the first couple of chapters.
The impersonation is complicated and not what it appears to be; in fact, just about everyone in this story has multiple layers of deception and misrepresentation to manage, lending tension to the most ordinary encounters. The truth gets revealed bit by bit, but far from setting anyone free, it binds the characters to ever greater danger and emotional pain. There’s frustrated love of home and family, the desperate need to belong, love lost and love forfeited, and deep resentments on all sides.
Stewart juggles these complexities so deftly that I was never confused even when I was surprised. The book works you over but leaves you satisfied in the end. This is the work of a master on top of her game.
May 18, 2023
An interesting premise, an engaging end, and some of the most beautiful descriptions I’ve yet read. It did drag a bit in the middle, like it felt like there wasn’t quite enough going on to warrant this length of book, and it’s not exactly kind to Irish people - though that may be an accident. All in all while a solid read, if you really want to see Mary Stewart at her best I’d recommend her Merlin Series.
October 26, 2023
A bit of a letdown after reading Touch Not the Cat, which has grown on me quite a bit since reading it last month. Several plot points were identical between the two books, therefore ruining the twists for me. I also didn't like the characters as much as TNTC. Maybe I should choose something other than an inheritance story from Stewart for my next book by her. And re-read TNTC because I think I can get past the psychic weirdness now that I know because I just loved the setting and the characters and romance grew on me in a way they did not in The Ivy Tree. From what I can tell, Stewart is not known for repeating herself in settings, so I have much more to explore that will hopefully turn out better for me.
March 27, 2013
Possibly my favourite Mary Stewart so far -- and the last of her mystery/romances, which is possibly why. Gah, I can't believe I have no more to look forward to. I accidentally spoilered myself as to the end of this one, but that was okay because the narration is clever enough that I just spent the time trying to catch Mary/Annabel out.
I wish I knew what it was that makes Mary Stewart's mystery/romances work for me, but I can't really put my finger on it. Something about the atmosphere, the characters, the simple inevitability of it all, the way she can make me believe the most terribly far-fetched things. The way I end up falling in love with most of her pairings. She didn't make me fall in love with Con -- I saw him coming far too easily, the way he was -- or understand Mary/Annabel's willingness to work for his interests, but still. Somehow I accepted the plot anyway.
I'll miss Mary Stewart's romances. They're immensely easy to read, addictive, and usually well-balanced as regards the amount of suspension of disbelief necessary, description vs. action, characters, romance vs. mystery... I'd have to be very sure of someone's taste before recommending these, I think, but I was utterly and unexpectedly charmed.
I wish I knew what it was that makes Mary Stewart's mystery/romances work for me, but I can't really put my finger on it. Something about the atmosphere, the characters, the simple inevitability of it all, the way she can make me believe the most terribly far-fetched things. The way I end up falling in love with most of her pairings. She didn't make me fall in love with Con -- I saw him coming far too easily, the way he was -- or understand Mary/Annabel's willingness to work for his interests, but still. Somehow I accepted the plot anyway.
I'll miss Mary Stewart's romances. They're immensely easy to read, addictive, and usually well-balanced as regards the amount of suspension of disbelief necessary, description vs. action, characters, romance vs. mystery... I'd have to be very sure of someone's taste before recommending these, I think, but I was utterly and unexpectedly charmed.
March 12, 2025
My first Mary Stewart! Delightfully twisty and turny.
March 7, 2021
“Charm presupposes some sort of vivacity and spark, at least what one might call some gesture of advance towards life…”
I’ve never visited England’s Northern Fells, (even though I would very much like to), but I dare say that Mary Stewart’s opening pages transported me to as close as one could get without actually being there:
“I might have been alone on a painted landscape…
The sky was still and blue, and the high cauliflower clouds over towards the south seemed to hang without movement. Against their curled bases the fells curved and folded, blue foothills of the Pennines giving way to the misty green of the pasture, where, small in the distance as hedge-parsley, trees showed in the folded valleys, symbols, perhaps, of houses and farms. But in all that windless, wide landscape, I could see no sign of man’s hand, except the lines – as old as the ridge and furrow of the pasture below me – of the dry-stone walls, and the arrogant stride of the great Wall which Hadrian had driven across Northumberland, nearly two thousand years ago.
The blocks of the Roman-cut stone were warm against my back. Where I sat, the Wall ran high along the ridge. To the right, the cliff fell sheer away to water, the long reach of Crag Lough, now quiet as glass in the sun. To the left, the sweeping, magnificent view to the Pennines. Ahead of me, ridge after ridge, running west, with the Wall cresting each curve like a stallion’s mane.
There was a sycamore in the gully just below me. Some stray current of air rustled its leaves, momentarily, with a sound like rain. Two lambs, their mother astray somewhere not far away, were sleeping closely cuddled together, in the warm sunshine. They had watched me for a time, but I sat there without moving, and after awhile the two heads went down again to the warm grass, and they slept.
I sat in the sun and thought. Nothing definite, but if I had been asked to define my thoughts, they would have come in one word.
England.
This turf, this sky, this heartsease in the grass; the old lines of ridge and furrow, and the still older ghosts of Roman road and Wall; the ordered, spare beauty of the Northern Fells; this, in front of me now, was England…
This other Eden, demi-paradise. This dear, dear, land.”
Then, without warning, I, the reader was ripped from my reading reverie…reminded that this was a story I was immersed in…not a breathtaking view of a scene I’d been physically superimposed into some how…
It was the shout…as I imagined it, that really broke me from my daydream…
Annabelle!!
I was now firmly re-established in my role as reader…one trying to imagine this man who so rudely broke my tranquility. He’s angry and is inexplicably yelling at the young woman sitting against the stone wall.
He’s on about a young woman named Annabel, nineteen years old when she’d run away from a nearby estate named Whitescar. It had happened eight years before, and she’d left on the worst of terms…at least that is what she can make out from his incessant shouting. Somewhere in there, the young man managed a most unceremonious attempt at an introduction…Connor “Con” Winslow of the aforementioned Whitescar Estate.
So convinced is he that he’d standing face to face with the long absent Annabelle, that he doesn’t even register the protests of the woman now standing before him, (she was previously sitting comfortably against the stone wall, but rose to her feet in protest to the man’s shouting), “I’m not Annabelle from, what did you call it, this Whitescar Estate?” She begins in a tone, not quite as forceful as his, but certainly sufficient to give him a moment of pause, “I’m Mary Grey…a born and raised Canadian!”
As a side note, being a Canadian myself, I must say that we would most certainly avoid yelling at another person, especially as a visitor in a foreign land, but even these polite Canadian sensibilities would be credibly set aside for a moment if I were faced with such a stark, brusque display of belligerence form the other party…
This gradually becomes apparent to Con, and a short time later, when he steps a little closer, he notices that the ever-subtle variations between the features of this woman, and the ones he recalls from Annabelle are either the transformation that might be the result of eight years passed, or perhaps, more rationally, the distinct appearance that would indicate this to be a completely different person.
And by instinct, as the dawning of the possibility that this is indeed Mary Gray from Canada, and not Annabelle from Whitescar, the man’s comportment transforms from frightening maniac to charmingly apologetic gentleman, “I must have scared you,” he begins, “Charging up like that and looming over you like a threat from the past…”
And it’s after a series of exchanges, all of which feature Con staring at Mary in disbelief at her uncanny similarity to this Annabelle woman, that he manages to as a question about the current situation, “Are you staying nearby?” He then pauses, as if he’s already thought of the answer to his own question, “No, I suppose you can’t be, or everyone would be talking…after all, you have a face that’s well known in these parts…”
Mary, for her part, no longer alarmed by this man’s presence, finds herself amused, and curious about this scenario of her lookalike. A very similarly featured woman who was from this very community. She then tells the man that she’s visiting these particular sights, but she’s actually staying, and working (in a café) in Newcastle.
“I came here because it’s my day off,” she says, completing her answer.
Once again, the man seems to have slipped into his own world of thoughts, it seemed to her that he hadn’t heard her answer, but instead was mentally playing at the line of his own questioning,
“What brought you up here?” He suddenly asked.
Mary took his question to mean that he was speaking of Northern England in general, and not this particular place of the Fells. She explains that her family have all died, and that most recently she was caring for a friend with crippling polio, on her farm near Montreal. Her friend passed away six months ago, and after that she felt alone and adrift in Canada. She felt a desire to sojourn to the place where her ancestors had lived, generations before, when they were here.
“My people did come from hereabouts, so my grandmother told me…”
“From Whitescar?” Con asked.
Mary shook her head, “I never heard the name, I was very little when Granny died…but I did know that my ancestors did come from somewhere in Northumberland. They were Armstrong’s.”
“Have you come to stay?” Con asked, more softly now.
Mary laughed, “That’s what I’d told myself. But I hadn’t seen myself coming back quite like this, I’m afraid. I-well, I was left pretty badly off. I got my fare together, and enough to tide me over till I got a job. And that’s my situation now. It sounds like the opposite of the usual story doesn’t it? Usually, the lone wolf sets out to the New World to make his way, but I…well, I wanted to come over here. The New World can be a bit wearying when you’re on your own, and…don’t laugh…but I thought I might fit in better here.”
“Because your roots are here?” Con asked.
Mary paused, trying to piece together her thoughts, when Con suddenly built upon his own question, “Maybe there was someone, some Winslow way back in the last century who went to Canada from here. Yes, that’s it, that explains it! Some Winslow went to Canada, and one of his daughters…your great-grandmother…married an Armstrong there. That must be it!”
“Perhaps,” Mary replied in a non-committal way.
But her casual, almost dismissive reply didn’t seem to dissuade Con, “That makes us cousins, then!” He loudly proclaimed.
What followed was a lengthy tale Con told her about the history of the Winslows, their feud with the neighboring Forrest family and the eventual flight of their rival family to Italy.
It was shortly after this that Mary began to pick up her bag.
“Where are you going?” Con demanded.
“I must catch my bus,” Mary announced matter-of-factly.
“But you can’t go yet,” Con protested, he then went on with his theory that Mary’s presence there…so close to her ancestral home couldn’t possibly be the result of coincidence. “We can’t simply walk away in the opposite direction and forget all this!”
“Why not?” Mary asked with a cool tone of voice, her eye already fixed on the path back to the station.
“Well, for one, you’re nearly broke,” Con gamely attempted.
“You take your family responsibilities very seriously, don’t you Mr. Winslow? Am I to take it that you were thinking of offering me a job?”
He looked at her, replying slowly, “Do you know, I might just do that very thing, Mary Grey!”
She laughs at the stuttering nature of his ill prepared answer, “But you can hardly expect me to take you up on it, and by the way, did you consider what sort of sensation would there be if I did turn up at Whitescar with you…had you thought of that?”
He replied in a strange voice, “Oddly enough, I had…”
For the next moment their eyes met, and Mary had the oddest feeling that for just those few seconds, each knew what the other was thinking.
That’s when Mary spoke up, “I must go. Really. Please, let’s leave it at that. I won’t annoy you by telling you again that it’s been interesting. It’s been…quite an experience. But forgive me if I say its one I don’t want to take any further. I mean that. Thank you for your offer of help. It was kind of you. And now this is really goodbye.
Mary then held out her hand. The formal gesture seemed, in these surroundings, and after what had passed, faintly absurd, but it would, she hoped, give the touch of finality to the interview, and provide the cue on which she could turn her back and leave him standing there.
To her relief, after a moments hesitation he made no further protest. He took the hand quite simply, in a sort of courteous recognition of defeat.
“Goodbye then, Mary Grey. I’m sorry. All the best.”
As she left him, she was very conscious of him standing there and staring at her.
In the ensuing chapter, we read of Con, and his half sister Lisa’s persistence as they attempt to break down Mary’s resolve. Their plan, to put it briefly, is for Mary to return to Whitescar, posing as Annabelle, the long-lost granddaughter of the master. So closely does Mary resemble Annabelle, and so intelligent did she come across as being, that they were both certain she’d make a more than credible “stand-in” for Annabelle. As we see in the abovementioned vignette, Mary is resistant in the beginning…but slowly, gradually, as the combination of her realization that a lifetime of near poverty wasn’t for her, and as the persistence of the Dermett siblings intensified, she gave into their scheme.
As I considered what might have been the straw that “broke the camel’s back” the factor that was powerful enough to cause Mary to decide for the scheme, I thought of the lyrics of Bob Seger’s storytelling masterpiece, “Against the Wind,” especially when he says, “I found myself seeking shelter against the wind…”
She would seek shelter from an uncertain future by venturing to Whitescar, as “Annabelle,” she would go along with Con and Lisa’s plan…and do the best job of it she possibly could.
And after three weeks of “schooling,” both Con and Lisa were convinced that she was ready for her new role. If she pulled it off, they persisted, then Annabelle’s grandfather would think twice about willing the estate to another family member named Julie, and instead, would will it to Annabelle, the once favorite of his grandchildren, before a row broke out between them and Annabelle fled Whitescar.
Con and Lisa are convinced that when “Annabelle” returns, Grandfather Matthew will be so happy that he’ll change his will in her favor, then, after he passes, the imposter would inherit the estate. One or two years later, after the news of the inheritance died down, she would sell the entire estate to Con and Lisa for a song. And in exchange for doing all this, she would be given a generous monthly salary for the rest of her life.
This was an incredible first chapter in a book that had one amazing scene after another! Here were just a few of my favorite moments in this story:
Mrs. Bates, a supremely confident member of the Whitescar serving staff who was, “a good hand with a tea cake.” She was a bit of a “legend in her own mind,” but was unforgettable to be sure!
Tommy, the ever present, fat, black and white cat.
A subtle “dessert slip up” that almost breaks the intricate web of deception woven into this story.
I really enjoyed the way Mary Stewart slowed the pace of the plot long enough for me, the reader, to take in the rich atmosphere “Annabelle” now found herself in…
“I went slowly up the wide oak staircase. The carpet was moss-green and thick; my feet made no sound. I turned along the landing which made a gallery to one side of the hall. At the end of it a window looked over the garden.
Here was a door. Oak too, with shallow panels sunk in their beveled frames. I put out a finger and ran it silently down the bevel.
The landing was full of sunlight. A bee was trapped, and blundering, with a deep hum, against the window. The sound was soporific, dreamy, drowning time. It belonged to a thousand summer afternoons, all the same, long, sun-drenched, lazily full of sleep…
Time ran into nothing; stood still; ran back…
The moment snapped. I turned, with a sharp little movement, and thrust open the casement beside me. The bee bumbled foolishly about for a moment or two, then shot off into the sunlight like a pebble from a sling. I latched the window quietly behind it, then turned and knock at the door…”
The scenes, like these that Mary Stewart wrote, were not just atmospheric, but thought provoking as well!
Aside from these things, I was also introduced to a number of words I’d never heard of before:
Chalcedony – A microcrystalline, translucent variety of quartz, often milky, or greyish.
Mandragora (Mandrake) – A narcotic, short-stemmed European plant of the nightshade family, having a fleshy, often forked root somewhat resembling a human form.
Dog’s Mercury – A hairy, somewhat poisonous euphorbiaceous perennial, having broad lanceolate toothed leaves and small greenish male and female flowers, the males borne in catkins. It often carpets shadowy woodlands.
Pussy-Struck – From a base-reference of “Star-Struck.” Represents an individual who acts differently / more chivalrous when the sex of preference is presented to him/her.
It was late Sunday morning when I started reading what would be the last 10% of this story. I'd wanted another coffee, a little breakfast and a refreshing shower...
But all of that would have to wait because these final pages were absolutely riveting!
Overall, a truly fantastic read. A Gothic Mystery masterpiece by Mary Stewart!
I’ve never visited England’s Northern Fells, (even though I would very much like to), but I dare say that Mary Stewart’s opening pages transported me to as close as one could get without actually being there:
“I might have been alone on a painted landscape…
The sky was still and blue, and the high cauliflower clouds over towards the south seemed to hang without movement. Against their curled bases the fells curved and folded, blue foothills of the Pennines giving way to the misty green of the pasture, where, small in the distance as hedge-parsley, trees showed in the folded valleys, symbols, perhaps, of houses and farms. But in all that windless, wide landscape, I could see no sign of man’s hand, except the lines – as old as the ridge and furrow of the pasture below me – of the dry-stone walls, and the arrogant stride of the great Wall which Hadrian had driven across Northumberland, nearly two thousand years ago.
The blocks of the Roman-cut stone were warm against my back. Where I sat, the Wall ran high along the ridge. To the right, the cliff fell sheer away to water, the long reach of Crag Lough, now quiet as glass in the sun. To the left, the sweeping, magnificent view to the Pennines. Ahead of me, ridge after ridge, running west, with the Wall cresting each curve like a stallion’s mane.
There was a sycamore in the gully just below me. Some stray current of air rustled its leaves, momentarily, with a sound like rain. Two lambs, their mother astray somewhere not far away, were sleeping closely cuddled together, in the warm sunshine. They had watched me for a time, but I sat there without moving, and after awhile the two heads went down again to the warm grass, and they slept.
I sat in the sun and thought. Nothing definite, but if I had been asked to define my thoughts, they would have come in one word.
England.
This turf, this sky, this heartsease in the grass; the old lines of ridge and furrow, and the still older ghosts of Roman road and Wall; the ordered, spare beauty of the Northern Fells; this, in front of me now, was England…
This other Eden, demi-paradise. This dear, dear, land.”
Then, without warning, I, the reader was ripped from my reading reverie…reminded that this was a story I was immersed in…not a breathtaking view of a scene I’d been physically superimposed into some how…
It was the shout…as I imagined it, that really broke me from my daydream…
Annabelle!!
I was now firmly re-established in my role as reader…one trying to imagine this man who so rudely broke my tranquility. He’s angry and is inexplicably yelling at the young woman sitting against the stone wall.
He’s on about a young woman named Annabel, nineteen years old when she’d run away from a nearby estate named Whitescar. It had happened eight years before, and she’d left on the worst of terms…at least that is what she can make out from his incessant shouting. Somewhere in there, the young man managed a most unceremonious attempt at an introduction…Connor “Con” Winslow of the aforementioned Whitescar Estate.
So convinced is he that he’d standing face to face with the long absent Annabelle, that he doesn’t even register the protests of the woman now standing before him, (she was previously sitting comfortably against the stone wall, but rose to her feet in protest to the man’s shouting), “I’m not Annabelle from, what did you call it, this Whitescar Estate?” She begins in a tone, not quite as forceful as his, but certainly sufficient to give him a moment of pause, “I’m Mary Grey…a born and raised Canadian!”
As a side note, being a Canadian myself, I must say that we would most certainly avoid yelling at another person, especially as a visitor in a foreign land, but even these polite Canadian sensibilities would be credibly set aside for a moment if I were faced with such a stark, brusque display of belligerence form the other party…
This gradually becomes apparent to Con, and a short time later, when he steps a little closer, he notices that the ever-subtle variations between the features of this woman, and the ones he recalls from Annabelle are either the transformation that might be the result of eight years passed, or perhaps, more rationally, the distinct appearance that would indicate this to be a completely different person.
And by instinct, as the dawning of the possibility that this is indeed Mary Gray from Canada, and not Annabelle from Whitescar, the man’s comportment transforms from frightening maniac to charmingly apologetic gentleman, “I must have scared you,” he begins, “Charging up like that and looming over you like a threat from the past…”
And it’s after a series of exchanges, all of which feature Con staring at Mary in disbelief at her uncanny similarity to this Annabelle woman, that he manages to as a question about the current situation, “Are you staying nearby?” He then pauses, as if he’s already thought of the answer to his own question, “No, I suppose you can’t be, or everyone would be talking…after all, you have a face that’s well known in these parts…”
Mary, for her part, no longer alarmed by this man’s presence, finds herself amused, and curious about this scenario of her lookalike. A very similarly featured woman who was from this very community. She then tells the man that she’s visiting these particular sights, but she’s actually staying, and working (in a café) in Newcastle.
“I came here because it’s my day off,” she says, completing her answer.
Once again, the man seems to have slipped into his own world of thoughts, it seemed to her that he hadn’t heard her answer, but instead was mentally playing at the line of his own questioning,
“What brought you up here?” He suddenly asked.
Mary took his question to mean that he was speaking of Northern England in general, and not this particular place of the Fells. She explains that her family have all died, and that most recently she was caring for a friend with crippling polio, on her farm near Montreal. Her friend passed away six months ago, and after that she felt alone and adrift in Canada. She felt a desire to sojourn to the place where her ancestors had lived, generations before, when they were here.
“My people did come from hereabouts, so my grandmother told me…”
“From Whitescar?” Con asked.
Mary shook her head, “I never heard the name, I was very little when Granny died…but I did know that my ancestors did come from somewhere in Northumberland. They were Armstrong’s.”
“Have you come to stay?” Con asked, more softly now.
Mary laughed, “That’s what I’d told myself. But I hadn’t seen myself coming back quite like this, I’m afraid. I-well, I was left pretty badly off. I got my fare together, and enough to tide me over till I got a job. And that’s my situation now. It sounds like the opposite of the usual story doesn’t it? Usually, the lone wolf sets out to the New World to make his way, but I…well, I wanted to come over here. The New World can be a bit wearying when you’re on your own, and…don’t laugh…but I thought I might fit in better here.”
“Because your roots are here?” Con asked.
Mary paused, trying to piece together her thoughts, when Con suddenly built upon his own question, “Maybe there was someone, some Winslow way back in the last century who went to Canada from here. Yes, that’s it, that explains it! Some Winslow went to Canada, and one of his daughters…your great-grandmother…married an Armstrong there. That must be it!”
“Perhaps,” Mary replied in a non-committal way.
But her casual, almost dismissive reply didn’t seem to dissuade Con, “That makes us cousins, then!” He loudly proclaimed.
What followed was a lengthy tale Con told her about the history of the Winslows, their feud with the neighboring Forrest family and the eventual flight of their rival family to Italy.
It was shortly after this that Mary began to pick up her bag.
“Where are you going?” Con demanded.
“I must catch my bus,” Mary announced matter-of-factly.
“But you can’t go yet,” Con protested, he then went on with his theory that Mary’s presence there…so close to her ancestral home couldn’t possibly be the result of coincidence. “We can’t simply walk away in the opposite direction and forget all this!”
“Why not?” Mary asked with a cool tone of voice, her eye already fixed on the path back to the station.
“Well, for one, you’re nearly broke,” Con gamely attempted.
“You take your family responsibilities very seriously, don’t you Mr. Winslow? Am I to take it that you were thinking of offering me a job?”
He looked at her, replying slowly, “Do you know, I might just do that very thing, Mary Grey!”
She laughs at the stuttering nature of his ill prepared answer, “But you can hardly expect me to take you up on it, and by the way, did you consider what sort of sensation would there be if I did turn up at Whitescar with you…had you thought of that?”
He replied in a strange voice, “Oddly enough, I had…”
For the next moment their eyes met, and Mary had the oddest feeling that for just those few seconds, each knew what the other was thinking.
That’s when Mary spoke up, “I must go. Really. Please, let’s leave it at that. I won’t annoy you by telling you again that it’s been interesting. It’s been…quite an experience. But forgive me if I say its one I don’t want to take any further. I mean that. Thank you for your offer of help. It was kind of you. And now this is really goodbye.
Mary then held out her hand. The formal gesture seemed, in these surroundings, and after what had passed, faintly absurd, but it would, she hoped, give the touch of finality to the interview, and provide the cue on which she could turn her back and leave him standing there.
To her relief, after a moments hesitation he made no further protest. He took the hand quite simply, in a sort of courteous recognition of defeat.
“Goodbye then, Mary Grey. I’m sorry. All the best.”
As she left him, she was very conscious of him standing there and staring at her.
In the ensuing chapter, we read of Con, and his half sister Lisa’s persistence as they attempt to break down Mary’s resolve. Their plan, to put it briefly, is for Mary to return to Whitescar, posing as Annabelle, the long-lost granddaughter of the master. So closely does Mary resemble Annabelle, and so intelligent did she come across as being, that they were both certain she’d make a more than credible “stand-in” for Annabelle. As we see in the abovementioned vignette, Mary is resistant in the beginning…but slowly, gradually, as the combination of her realization that a lifetime of near poverty wasn’t for her, and as the persistence of the Dermett siblings intensified, she gave into their scheme.
As I considered what might have been the straw that “broke the camel’s back” the factor that was powerful enough to cause Mary to decide for the scheme, I thought of the lyrics of Bob Seger’s storytelling masterpiece, “Against the Wind,” especially when he says, “I found myself seeking shelter against the wind…”
She would seek shelter from an uncertain future by venturing to Whitescar, as “Annabelle,” she would go along with Con and Lisa’s plan…and do the best job of it she possibly could.
And after three weeks of “schooling,” both Con and Lisa were convinced that she was ready for her new role. If she pulled it off, they persisted, then Annabelle’s grandfather would think twice about willing the estate to another family member named Julie, and instead, would will it to Annabelle, the once favorite of his grandchildren, before a row broke out between them and Annabelle fled Whitescar.
Con and Lisa are convinced that when “Annabelle” returns, Grandfather Matthew will be so happy that he’ll change his will in her favor, then, after he passes, the imposter would inherit the estate. One or two years later, after the news of the inheritance died down, she would sell the entire estate to Con and Lisa for a song. And in exchange for doing all this, she would be given a generous monthly salary for the rest of her life.
This was an incredible first chapter in a book that had one amazing scene after another! Here were just a few of my favorite moments in this story:
Mrs. Bates, a supremely confident member of the Whitescar serving staff who was, “a good hand with a tea cake.” She was a bit of a “legend in her own mind,” but was unforgettable to be sure!
Tommy, the ever present, fat, black and white cat.
A subtle “dessert slip up” that almost breaks the intricate web of deception woven into this story.
I really enjoyed the way Mary Stewart slowed the pace of the plot long enough for me, the reader, to take in the rich atmosphere “Annabelle” now found herself in…
“I went slowly up the wide oak staircase. The carpet was moss-green and thick; my feet made no sound. I turned along the landing which made a gallery to one side of the hall. At the end of it a window looked over the garden.
Here was a door. Oak too, with shallow panels sunk in their beveled frames. I put out a finger and ran it silently down the bevel.
The landing was full of sunlight. A bee was trapped, and blundering, with a deep hum, against the window. The sound was soporific, dreamy, drowning time. It belonged to a thousand summer afternoons, all the same, long, sun-drenched, lazily full of sleep…
Time ran into nothing; stood still; ran back…
The moment snapped. I turned, with a sharp little movement, and thrust open the casement beside me. The bee bumbled foolishly about for a moment or two, then shot off into the sunlight like a pebble from a sling. I latched the window quietly behind it, then turned and knock at the door…”
The scenes, like these that Mary Stewart wrote, were not just atmospheric, but thought provoking as well!
Aside from these things, I was also introduced to a number of words I’d never heard of before:
Chalcedony – A microcrystalline, translucent variety of quartz, often milky, or greyish.
Mandragora (Mandrake) – A narcotic, short-stemmed European plant of the nightshade family, having a fleshy, often forked root somewhat resembling a human form.
Dog’s Mercury – A hairy, somewhat poisonous euphorbiaceous perennial, having broad lanceolate toothed leaves and small greenish male and female flowers, the males borne in catkins. It often carpets shadowy woodlands.
Pussy-Struck – From a base-reference of “Star-Struck.” Represents an individual who acts differently / more chivalrous when the sex of preference is presented to him/her.
It was late Sunday morning when I started reading what would be the last 10% of this story. I'd wanted another coffee, a little breakfast and a refreshing shower...
But all of that would have to wait because these final pages were absolutely riveting!
Overall, a truly fantastic read. A Gothic Mystery masterpiece by Mary Stewart!
September 11, 2025
Fantastic! Review to follow
Re-read for bookclub August 2025 I am reading the kindle version this time.
Check out this description!
Here a giant oak stood. It had been originally on the inside of the wall, but with the years it had grown and spread, pressing closer and ever closer to the masonry . . . But the power of the oak would be its undoing, for the wall had been clothed in ivy, and the ivy had reached for the tree, crept up it, engulfed it, till now the trunk was one towering mass of the dark gleaming leaves, and only the tree's upper branches managed to thrust the young gold leaves of early summer through the strangling curtain. Eventually the ivy would kill it. . .
I looked up at it for a long time.
Re-read for bookclub August 2025 I am reading the kindle version this time.
Check out this description!
Here a giant oak stood. It had been originally on the inside of the wall, but with the years it had grown and spread, pressing closer and ever closer to the masonry . . . But the power of the oak would be its undoing, for the wall had been clothed in ivy, and the ivy had reached for the tree, crept up it, engulfed it, till now the trunk was one towering mass of the dark gleaming leaves, and only the tree's upper branches managed to thrust the young gold leaves of early summer through the strangling curtain. Eventually the ivy would kill it. . .
I looked up at it for a long time.
November 1, 2024
The Ivy Tree was one of the first "adult" novels I read when I was thirteen, and the twist (in my young mind) was absolutely shocking. I read the novel once or twice more in my teens, so it's been a hot minute, but the only thing I did remember this past week upon re-reading it was the twist. The Ivy Tree isn't as good as Mary Stewart's other novels, but I'll keep the five-star rating for it just for nostalgia's sake.
April 20, 2019
Happy to have discovered this author, though late in the game. I enjoyed this romantic suspense book for its strong characters, beautifully described nature and intelligent and brave female protagonist.
The plot involves presenting a look alike to assume identity of a young heiress but this scheme gets turned inside out.
Setting - Northumberland
The plot involves presenting a look alike to assume identity of a young heiress but this scheme gets turned inside out.
Setting - Northumberland
August 18, 2019
One of my favorites read as a teenager. I remember the 1961 cover. Just listened to a sample of the 2019 audible and I must have it. I'm sure it will be a brand new-to-me story over 40 years later. I wonder if I can find this old copy in a box in the attic?
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