Book Review: This Rough Magic by Mary Stewart
This is my 5th Mary Stewart read and I’m still utterly in love with her.
Okay, my cynical heart will admit she sticks to a strict formula. But she does it so well, I don’t care.
Our heroine this time is Lucy, a theatre actress who finally got the lead in a play only to have it be a dud. Licking her wounds, she escapes London to travel to Corfu, where her wealthy sister resides. Expecting peace and tranquility, Lucy instead gets wrapped up in murder.
Stewart’s descriptive passages are, as usual, sublime. If you can’t picture the crystal clear water off the coast of the island, its ancient ruins, the smaller villages of helpful but poor locals, the flowers and lushly landscaped surrounds of the luxury Villas where these rich Brits live, or even the underground caves and wine cellars beneath them, well… Well, that can’t happen. Stewart prose makes the reader picture them as easily as a photograph.
Stewart’s action scenes also are so easy to follow and imagine. From scuffles with guns to a tussle on board a boat, the reader never has to pause and just wonder what is going on.
Another thing she can do better than most is suspense and tension. There’s always a subtlety to the suspense at first (the leading ladies always think perhaps they are imagining danger when there might be none), then, Stewart ramps things up until your heart is thumping. And Stewart can make the most mundine moments, like an unanswered telephone call, become sinister.
Talking of tension, Stewart can do sexual tension also like no other. The chemistry between Lucy and her love interest crackles off the page. So often I read a modern romance and whinge that the leading couple has zero chemistry. I don’t imagine I’d ever have that complaint about a Stewart book. I definitely didn’t with This Rough Magic! I was, as they say, shipping it hard!
Out of the rest of the supporting characters, Lucy’s sister’s neighbour, the world famous actor Sir Julian Gale, is an absolute stand out. He’s hilarious and tragic at the same time and I really can’t understand why this novel was never adapted into a movie somewhere along the line because Sir Julian would have been so much fun on screen and whoever played him would have been instantly up for a supporting actor award. (I love all the Goodreads reviews where the readers/reviewers have ‘cast’ the book. I will admit that I instantly cast Sir Patrick Stewart as Sir Julian.)
And, of course, Corfu is another character. It’s not really a location I was familiar with before the book but it certainly made me fall in love with it. I also learnt a lot about Albania. I am rather ignorant about its political history and ended up on the internet after finishing This Rough Magic, reading up on the country and, in particular, being fascinated by the length of time it remained isolated due to communism.
Obviously I recommend This Rough Magic and I’m still keen to read some more Stewart titles. My head tells me that the book might be a little dated which should result in a less than perfect rating but my heart says it’s in charge today, so 5 out of 5.
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