Book completed

[eve_prime]

Thunder on the Right, by Mary Stewart. I’d only read this one once and didn’t remember all the details. Jennifer, a young British woman, heads to a convent high in the Pyrenees to meet up with her cousin, at the cousin’s request, but when she arrives the cousin is… dead and buried? Or is she? There’s great nature-writing, as always for Stewart, including a terrific storm at night, with an avalanche and a flooding waterfall. She wrote this one a few years before the other two I recently reread, and the story isn’t really as good, but the imagery is still wonderfully vivid.

Comments

[heleninwales]

I remember reading that Mary Stewart's husband was a lecturer and later professor of geology. She went with him on many of his field trips, which explains why so many of her novels are set in places that are geologically interesting. You've also reminded me that her novels may be just the thing to reread now. They have the right mix of romance, suspense and a satisfying ending.

[eve_prime]

Yes, very satisfying, and the women aren't passive, though this one does spend some time wanting her man to rescue her. Also, this one makes the geology more explicit, with a pair of aging female geologists from Cambridge who are also staying in the village and whose conversation is amusingly overheard.