white_hart

I've been meaning to try some of Mary Stewart's novels for ages, as she's someone multiple people whose opinions I respect speak highly of, and the

girlmeetstrouble readalong spurred me to pick up the copy of Madam, Will You Talk? which I acquired from a phone box full of secondhand books in Buckland last summer (although I did temporarily forget it was that one and had got as far as downloading a kindle copy before spotting it on the TBR bookcase and returning the kindle copy for a refund) and give it a go.

Madam, Will You Talk? is categorised as 'romantic suspense'; basically, it felt like John Buchan from the point of view of the heroine, rather than the hero. (This is not to say anything against Buchan - his heroines are terrific - but I can't think of any of his novels that actually show things from their perspective.) The heroine of Madam, Will You Talk? is Charity Selbourne, who finds herself caught up in the final act of a complicated, murderous plot when she befriends a young boy who is staying at the same Avignon hotel where she and a friend are holidaying. Stewart's characterisation of Charity manages to balance all the qualities needed in the heroine of a suspense novel - a strong moral compass, a determination to do the right thing regardless of potential personal cost, and a resourcefulness and skillset that might not be expected of a young woman in the 1950s - with a very realistic sense of fear of the dangerous game she finds herself playing. ('I am not the stuff of which heroines are made', Charity thinks at one point, shortly before going off and behaving in a very heroine-like way.)

I loved this. It's very much a page-turner; the plot hurtles along at breakneck speed, and in places I found it almost too suspenseful. The romance is the kind that I'd probably dislike in a straight romance novel but somehow rather enjoy when it's crossed with another genre, and the descriptions of the Provençal settings are absolutely wonderful; of the places mentioned in the novel, I've only been to Avignon (our day trip when we stayed there was to Orange, rather than Nîmes and the Pont du Gard); Stewart's descriptions evoked it perfectly, as well as helping me to visualise the other settings of the novel, and the sun-soaked Mediterranean feel of the novel was the perfect antidote to this greyest of English winters. I will definitely be adding Stewart to the list of enjoyable but not entirely fluffy comfort reads.