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  • The Ivy Tree

  • By: Mary Stewart
  • Narrated by: Amy Molloy
  • Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (38 ratings)
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The Ivy Tree cover art

The Ivy Tree

By: Mary Stewart
Narrated by: Amy Molloy
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Summary

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
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: Romance

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)

What listeners say about The Ivy Tree

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  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Oh dear... it's such a brilliant book

I'm not sure where to start... with the simultaneous release of 4 well loved Mary Stewart novels I listened in order on the 'save the best till last' principle, I've already heard The Moon-Spinners and The Gabriel Hounds, moving to this and finishing with My Brother Michael. Never did I imagine I might even consider returning a Mary Stewart...
So can I ask a question? Looked at logically, a young man, Connor Winslow, grows up in Ireland, moves to Northumberland in his late teens and at the age of 30 still has his Irish accent. Fair enough, because speech patterns are normally set in our early years.
So why would a young woman, born and brought up in Northumberland, leave home in her late teens and return after only 8 years with a slow transatlantic droning voice and an inability to remember how to pronounce the local place names?
Doesn't compute, does it? But that's what we are supposed to accept. A slight Canadian accent can be justified in the early incarnation of Mary Grey - but not in the later chapters; and this isn't slight
I can't entirely blame the narrator. Somebody else made the editorial decision to make this narration a slow emotionless monotone with an accent that doesn't fit the character. Sometimes I think these studios push the narrations through on a conveyor belt without anyone concerned actually knowing anything about the books.
And to be fair to her, Amy Molloy makes a pretty good attempt at some of the other voices, though not all. Connor, Lisa, Mrs Bates, Grandfather - they are all distinctive and she even has a fair go at the Geordie accent early on in the cafe, and that is a really difficult thing to pull off. It's with these other voices that any trace of emotion and spark of life comes in. With Mary / Annabel it remains a slow monotonous drawl and it really drags..
One tip - listening on a Kindle it does improve a bit at times if you shift to x1.25 speed. But then you get a headache...
Sorry but one to avoid. Such a shame. It's a brilliant book

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12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars

So disappointing

A real poor narrator. Completely spoiled an old favourite. I was so looking forward to this but every chapter is a struggle. Such a shame. I am hoping to eventually manage to get to the end, have to keep rewinding.

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11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great story but .......

Oh dear what a pity that such a good story is marred by poor pronunciation of certain ‘Northumbrian’ words/place names. If ‘Annabel’ had turned up and talked about ‘BellingHam’ and referred to the the neighbour as ‘FenWick’ there would have been no story as she would have been instantly ‘outed’. ‘Annabel’ would have known without being told that the village is pronounced as ‘BellingJM’ and the neighbour’s name as ‘FeNik’. So an otherwise good reading is marred by lack of attention to detail and poor basic research.

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9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Get the accents right, please.

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.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Loved it!

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.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Pronunciation

This book was spoiled for me by the pronunciation. I do feel it should have been ensured that the reader ( otherwise excellent) should have been able to do a Northumbrian accent, and pronounce local names like Fenwick correctly .
.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Love finds a way

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

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  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Classic Mary Stewart

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.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Not as I remember

I had saved this Mary Stewart till last because it had been my favourite when I first read it 45 years ago and the complaints about the narrator made me reluctant to have it spoiled.
In the event I thought the narrator was fine. But oh dear! 45 years had played havoc with my memories! I will not give away the plot, but I was very fed up to discover that the character I have been in love with for so many years turns out not to have been the romantic lead after all. So I was majorly annoyed with the ending.

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

0* for terrible accents

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

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