Wonderful

My favourite Mary Stewart. Beautifully read. Well paced. A treat. I've been waiting for a long time for more Mary Stewsrt books to become available and I'm glad to see many more will be available this year. I've just downloaded 'Airs above the ground " -another great favourite. Mary Stewart is a consummate story teller and if the other performances are as good as this I'll be kept enthralled for quite a while.

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2 people found this helpful

Great story, excellent narration

It's so good to see these Mary Stewart books available on Audible. This is one of her best, re-recorded with excellent narration. Thank you Audible

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2 people found this helpful

Always loved this book

This is an old favourite and the narration really enhances it. Loved it! Great job.

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1 person found this helpful

Well worth the long wait

This book has been my number one comfort read since I was thirteen, so I was a little nervous that this audio version wouldn't live up to it. But it did. The narrator clearly understood that a very great part of Mary Stewart's gift is her sense of place, so where some readers might have rushed through the descriptions of landscape, of nature, this reader brought everything to it that the memorable, evocative writing deserves. And she was even better with nuances of character. All the heroine's deapth of personality came through perfectly, and ditto for Raoul. And, if anything, her rendering of young Philippe was even better. He was absolutely the haunted, brave but blossoming young boy I just love to bits. On top all this the narrator's French pronunciation, and French accented English, was, to my ears, and to those of Francophone family members, so spot on I'd love to know if she has French family of her own. So, I couldn't have enjoyed this more.

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5 people found this helpful

Ellie Heydon sounds exactly as I'm imagined Linda

My favourite Mary Stewart and made all the better by this narrator and with excellent French - to my ear.

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Another great story from the inventor of the literary romantic thriller genre. None of it seemed at all familiar, so this must have been the novel that was permanently out on loan at my local library in the late 1970s, when as a teenager I first discovered Stewart. The story is loosely based on Jane Eyre. Such was Stewart's skill, this 1950s rendition is still an engrossing, beautifully written tale. There are plenty of the author's trademark descriptions of landscape and nature, that are never superfluous to the plot. Characters are well-drawn, and if the social mores and cultural attitudes of the time are occasionally jarring, they're no less interesting for that. Good narration from Ellie Heydon, particularly of the French language parts, though with some odd pronunciations of English words and names. Some Audible narrators of Mary Stewart's novels are truly awful (honourable exceptions being Rose Boyd and Derek Perkins) so these are minor quibbles in comparison.

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1 person found this helpful

An old friend, now updated with great narration

Beautifully read. This is a book that die hard Mary Stewart fans know inside out, and are well aware how the tension slowly builds up, from the coldness of Madame to the love for the little Count and a real worry about the fascinating Raoul, let alone his father, Leon de Valmy.
The background build up from Linda's childhood in Paris to the new role as a Governess who doesn't want to admit she speaks the French of France is well handled.
This is a wonderful book (I can still swear I can taste the frosted grapes from the midnight feast) with mystery, romance and the gloriously down to earth William Blake. Like all Mary Stewart fans I love it.
Ellie Heydon does a great job of narration, I just wish she had been commissioned to read some of the others, but hey ho, by the end of this year we will have them all recorded so it's churlish to complain...
Thank you Audible, wonderful to have so many favourite old friends read to me at last

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1 person found this helpful

Lovely story

I really enjoyed this book, particularly the way rural France was evoked. I thought the narration was great and liked that the French characters had accents only when they spoke in English. Overall though, I have to say I preferred The Moon Spinners and Thornyhold - if you haven’t read these two treats from Mary Stewart yet I suggest you do so ASAP!

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1 person found this helpful

Long-awaited and not disappointed

I have long awaited the reissue of Mary Stewart's novels, having fond memories of both reading them and listening to them on casette [remember them?!]. Thank you Audible.

The story and beautiful descriptive prose do not disappoint. So very evocative of a time now past and with a dash of adventure and romance.

Sadly, the narrator let this book down a little. It may have been the fault of the editor, I don't know, but for some reason characters' french accents seemed to come and go like the evocative mist in the story. It was most disconcerting and I had to keep readjusting my brain to understand which character was talking when. It was detrimental to my enjoyment. Such a shame.

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Poor reading

Narration disappointing especially pronouncing simple words, eg, "yes". Some vowels incorrectly pronounced...I said pronounced "I SED"!

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