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The Ivy Tree

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About this listen

Mary Stewart, one of the great British storytellers of the 20th century, transports listeners to rural Northumberland for this tale of romance, ambition and deceit - a perfect fit for fans of Agatha Christie and Barbara Pym.

Whitescar is a beautiful old house and farm situated in Roman Wall country. It will make a rich inheritance for its heirs, but in order to secure it, they enlist the help of a young woman named Mary who bears remarkable resemblance to missing Whitescar heiress Annabel Winslow. Their deception will spark a powder keg of ambition, obsession and long-dead love.

The ivy had reached for the tree and only the tree's upper branches managed to thrust the young gold leaves of early summer through the strangling curtain. Eventually the ivy would kill it....

©1961 Mary Stewart (P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited Mystery Romance Romantic Suspense Suspense

Critic reviews

"There are few to equal Mary Stewart." (Daily Telegraph)

"Mary Stewart is magic." (New York Times)

"One of the great British storytellers of the 20th century." (Independent)
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Great story but eebygum ?cod Yorkshire? for the Northumbrian 'yokels' and a Canadian accented protagonist supposedly Northumbrian but can't pronounce Newcastle, scone or hawthorn...Just terrible

0* for terrible accents

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I was delighted to find Mary Stewart on Audible and am very greedily making my way through them starting with The Ivy Tree as one of my favourites. I agree with some other reviewers that the narration was not perfect but after the first few minutes I really didn’t care and honestly it wasn’t that bad anyway.

Loved it!

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A classic of its time, and still worth a listen. The narrator’s drawl was much too slow for me, and after the first chapter I played it through at the 1.2 speed, which made it more enjoyable.

Classic Mary Stewart

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This is one of my favourite books my only criticism is that many words are mispronounced.

Love finds a way

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A very enjoyable Mary Stewart classic and, on the whole, the restrained delivery of the narrator served to increase the slightly gothic tone to the story. However, though I understand the use of a narrator with a transatlantic accent in this particular case (main character, supposedly with Canadian accent, narrating the story), isn’t it possible to use bounce actors who can actually do English accents without making a mess of them. The Northumbrian characters all speak with a garbled Yorkshire twang, and those who are supposed to be “Geordies” have some lamentable twisted version of Liverpudlian Scouse.

Get the accents right, please.

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