As noted previously, during the Beryl power outage, I began rereading romantic suspense novels by Mary Stewart that I’ve been reading since the dawn of time when I was a teenager. After I finished the lot of them, I wondered how many I might be missing, so I looked up her complete list of works. There are the King Arthur books I’ve never read, and some children’s books, but turns out I actually own all of her romantic suspense novels. I shared photos of all the covers in previous posts, up to these two. Even though I’d reread both since 2020, I read them again.
They have two of my favorite male characters, and many of their qualities inspired male characters I’ve written (humor, sensitivity, kindness, strength, intelligence).
I did find in my search a novella and a short story that were published under the guidance of Mary Stewart’s niece, Jennifer Ogden. I’d read neither of these and ordered this edition immediately, which I’ve finished reading today (after an eye exam and a long nap so my eyes could return to their undilated state).
The Wind Off the Small Isles and “The Lost One.” In The Wind Off the Small Isles, Stewart included an Easter egg via a reference to a character in her novel This Rough Magic, an actor named Sir Julian Gale. There’s also an excerpt from that novel at the end of the collection.
This Rough Magic ranks in my top-favorite Stewart novels because it draws from Shakespeare’s The Tempest in its plot. Thanks to the play and Stewart’s novel, my interest was piqued by the 1982 film Tempest. Like Mary Stewart’s novel, the film borrows a lot from Shakespeare’s play. The film is unseen by most people I know–unless I’ve made them watch it with me. (Of course, I own the DVD–do you know me?) Tim and Jim still quote from it.
Tempest was directed by Paul Mazursky and stars the late John Cassavetes (who has long served as a physical model, along with a few of his qualities as a film director/producer of independent films, for one of my secondary characters in the Neverending Saga); Cassavetes’s wife Gena Rowlands; and introducing the young Sam Robards (son of Jason Robards and Lauren Bacall) and future brat-packer Molly Ringwald. This was also the film in which I was introduced to the brilliant actor Raul Julia.
My Muses and inspirations can be found among many people, novels, films, music, and art.
ETA: Beautiful Gena Rowlands died on August 14, age 94. I will think of her reunited with her husband, the two of them making beautifully crafted films together for always. Thank you, John and Gena, for being muses to me.