Mystery

good again. Normally, I find reading the same detective gets dull but there's much more than Malloory in O'Connell's books. all the characters have depth and their own agenda so the novels are unlke most stereotyped detective fiction. In some, one could say Mallory isn't the hero/heroine but a relative bit-player. This is good writing.

Excellent, creepy, learn a lot aobut Mallory

This is the beginning, introducing Mallory. Very good.

I enjoyed this one, difficult to begin with as I wasn't engaging with the characters. I still find myself interested n Mallory as a person but I can believe this is going to wear off ... there's only so much of one style, without real growth of the character that I can take. But the story, "Winter House" is good and I like the end.

Finished this morning - thur 18 Dec - and the end was sweet, just what I'd hoped it would be :-). Yup worth a read for those of you who like ramance adventure that's well written. I'm nearly finished with this one and very much enjoying it - to the extent that I'm hanging it out and not getting to the end too quickly :-). for adventure/romance Stewart certainlky has it. Her descriptive pieces are so good. We've just done the major crisis - a rooftop chase between the heroine and the bad guy - and it was very well done. I found it a wee bit long but there were hardly any spare words and they way the heroine reacted/interacted was all completely in character, so didn't jar. Stewart does the sub-plots well too at more than one level. There's a whole deal about rescuing an old horse which is the major sub-lot. Then there's a pucuniary count, and his rather bitter and well-portrayed wife, who run their castle as a hotel as a minot sub-plot. And the relationship between the heroine and the two major male characters - different enough but also similar as they both attract her, so showing up her own character as well as theirs. Like all women in the 60s, or at least between the covers of romances such as these, the heroine is slightly do-lally and not as fiesty as we might wish nowadays - but that's half the point! She's not from now, she's from then ... and I like my history to be real. I loathed titanic because it was all about 1990s people, not turn of the last century people. They just wouldn't have acted or looked like that. Stewart gives us her vision of how things were in the 60s. Again, not quite the 60s I lived - I was all out hippie! - but I knew the world she describes and it's authentic. An excellent read - recommended.

It's gorgeous! this is on the to buy list and wish-list if anyone wants to give it to me. I'll definitely read it again. It's delightful, good scary bits, not quite sure how it will end although she always does have a happy ending but it's not so trite as to be irritating. In fact there's a very nice use of the beginning words for the ending words too - neat trick when you can bring it off. Very skilful prose and weaving of plot-lines, transparent, you don't realise what she's doing until you stop and look. The sign of a good writer. I'm looking at this again as "teaching" for my own writing. This is very good. The beginning was a trifle difficult at frist but I soon got into it. the descriptions are excellent and the setting - mostly back in 1948 - are very good too. the characters are involving me and they're not simple, one can like parts of even the apparently "bad guys". am hanging it out so I don't finish too quickly, always a good sign :-). It might be quite strange to younger readers who ahve never been without a telephone or a car - the heroine is without both ,at least so far. But the sotry is only from the middle of the 20th century. It really isn;t very long ago that life did not revolve around the phone. I think this is important as part of the story, it somehow allows the magic to come in and stewart is doing that excellently. It is aobut magic, about learning it and even more about finding it. The sense of connectedness beteen the heroine and the place, the animals and birds is very strong, reminding me of her Merlin trilogy. will let you know how I feel when it ends ...

OK again, got bored with Harriet! Not a re-read and wouldn't buy it.