Quick Thoughts: The Moon-spinners

The Moon-spinners

by Mary Stewart

~ Goodreads ~

Rating:  4.0 Stars

When beautiful Nicola Ferris chose the remote island of Crete for her vacation, all she desired was to experience the ancient and brooding land on her own.

But one day her impulse led her on a little-used path into the foreboding White Mountains.  And there she found a man in hiding--for reasons he could not explain.

Warned to stay away, Nicola was unable to obey.  And before she realized what she had uncovered, she found herself thrust into the midst of an alarming plot in which she would become the prey....

The Moon-spinners was a very enjoyable read, if you overlook the fact that there is a significant amount of meandering into tangents that do nothing to forward the story.  Mary Stewart is excellent with her writing.  It's atmospheric, beautiful, and extremely smooth and easy to read, while at the same time thoughtful and witty.

While I'm giving it a rather high rating at 4 Stars, truth be told, this isn't the most thought inspiring book I've ever read.  The mystery is pretty much a non-mystery, and every event and detail seems to fall right into place for Nicola as she investigates and explores.  Even connections made were quite convenient as I was quite surprised at how she came to a lot of her deductions since very little fact lead to some of her conclusive ideas.

Her line of thought often perplexed me, but not in that, "Oh, that's genius!" way.  More like that, "I'm not sure how you came up with that," way.

Honestly, the story within The Moon-spinners was quite bland.

What was winning for this book would definitely be Stewart's writing, and maybe the characters, though a lot of male posturing was involved that had me a bit frustrated.  Nicola also came off a little TSTL, though, I'm not entirely sure I could completely classify her as such since she DID display an equal amount of sensible, logical behavior.

Meanwhile, the romance was pretty subtle, and I'm having a hard time trying to decide whether or not to file it into the insta-love category.  Nicola and Mark seem to grow attached to each other quite quickly, but with the way their relationship unfolds, I hesitate to even file this book into the romance category, truth be told, though it's there.  The interaction between the two are quite minimal, had very little chemistry, and is questionable as a romance, really.  And so I found myself more enamored of the interactions that Nicola has with her cousin Frances, with the hotel manager, Tony, even with Lambis or the fifteen-year-old Colin.

Anyway, I will definitely look up more Mary Stewart works, as I did indeed enjoy this read a lot, despite some of my complaints.

***

I read this book for Romance Bingo 2017, for the Gothic Romance square.

Other possible squares:

• Insta-love - See my opinions in the review.
• TSTL - See my opinions in the review.
• Love is Murder - There is danger, murder, and a somewhat of a mystery.
• New Adult - I think Nicola is mentioned to be in her early twenties, as is Mark.
• Love (Free Space)