Romance/suspense fantasy author Mary Stewart died at the age of 97 this week.

My favorite book of hers was Touch Not the Cat: mystery, Gothic, telepathy, archaeology, identical twins - it kinda has everything. It was enough to get me to rush through the rest of her Gothic/suspense novels, of which the best is arguably Nine Coaches Waiting, ( Read more... )

Sometime ago I made what seemed to be a miraculous find in the nearby Here Be Dragons used bookstore: a copy of Rachel Cosgrove Payes' The House of Tarot. Even better, I got it for free, which seemed really miraculous until I started reading it and discovered that once again the bookstore owner really knew her used books ( Read more... )