The Ivy Tree

by Mary Stewart

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.

• ISBN10: 0340011157
• ISBN13: 9780340011157
• Publish Date: 15 November 1990 (first published 1 January 1974)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 1 December 2010
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Coronet Books
• Edition: 2nd edition
• Format: Paperback (A-Format (178x111 mm))
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[MurderByDeath]

A truly excellent read, but not the book I was expecting.  I chose this book as my first bingo book because I was looking for something that would trip along at a fast clip, and typically Mary Stewart and the romantic suspense genre of her time generally do clip along as a good pace.   But The Ivy Tree doesn't.  This is a slowly paced, slowly building romantic suspense with a damn unreliable narrator, and I really dislike unreliable narrators.  So really this was not the book I was looking for so I found myself very impatient but at the same time, I was completely unable to put it down.  Is she or isn't she?  Did they or didn't they?  Will he or won't he?  And really, what the hell is up with creepy Lisa???   I'd have liked to have gotten more about Adam; given his role, Stewart doesn't allow us to get to know him at all, and I don't think Lisa's full potential of totally creepy was explored, but otherwise, in spite of not being what I thought it would be, this is really a riveting read.