What I'm Reading Now ~ Recommended ~ another by Mary Stewart

Mary Stewart is one of my favorite writers. Every year I re-read one of her books, and often I try to

squeeze in more than one. Of all the books that I have read--and it's in the high thousands--Stewart has three of the top five places. My Brother Michael and The Moonspinners constantly shift as #1 and #2.  Also in the top 5 is her This Rough Magic, a stronger book than the other two, but MBM and MS do capture my heart more.

So I re-read a book a year, but somehow this year I've gone for a re-read of five of her books--I don't know if that says something about stress levels or what. Maybe it says something about seeking inspiration from an excellent writer. Maybe it says something about the state of story-telling in my other reading.

Re-reading is a constant anticipated pleasure in a good story. Stewart always delivers.

You might ask~

"Why do people re-read books multiple times? Don't you know the story?"

My answer~

Yes, I do know the story. Why do you watch movies a second and third and fourth time?

For something you missed? For the ins and outs of the story that aren't so obvious? For the character interactions and the jokes and all those clever little things that make the movie memorable?

Good books are like those movies--and are EVEN BETTER! (Yes, that deserved caps.)

Story-telling is character development, character relationships, plot structure, plot twists, foreshadowing and red herrings and hidden clues, and sentence craft.

And much more.

So here's Stewart, Master of the Craft of Story-Telling, and the book that I've picked up is not her strongest. It's Nine Coaches Waiting, a classic gothic / that's romantic suspense for anyone confused by constantly shifting definitions.

Stewart introduced me to one of my favorite quotations in 9CW.  She usually has headnotes for each chapter, appropriate for the story or the setting or some such element.  This quotation, however, is stated by the protagonist. It's from Lewis Carroll's "The Hunting of the Snark". It comes far, far into the story, at a crucial moment between our heroine and the man she loves--a man she's not certain she should trust.

What I tell you three times is true.

Here are the three cover versions: the first one that I had on my shelf for many years, a second which is the best of all the ones out there, and the third one which is obviously a New York marketing executive's attempt to capture interest with the woman in jeopardy trope.