After my slight disappointment with Wildfire at Midnight I chose my next Stewart carefully. I wanted something that I would love as much as I love The Moonspinners or Thornyhold so I read the beginning of several novels to see what would click. As soon as I started reading Nine Coaches Waiting I knew it was the one.
Linda Martin is a young woman who’s been engaged as a governess to the nine-year-old Comte de Valmy, Philippe. She travels to his home, the Chateau Valmy, in the mountains of eastern France not far from Geneva and commences to oversee his education and day-to-day care. Philippe is an orphan and is under the guardianship of his Uncle Leon and Aunt Heloise who are not very affectionate people, but seem to care about his general well-being. The chateau is very isolated so Linda spends most of her time with Philippe with occasional trips into the nearest town where she soon meets a friendly Englishman, William Blake. After several frightening accidents nearly take Philippe’s life, Linda’s sense of security is shattered and she suspects that something is not quite right at the Chateau Valmy. She puts these feelings aside, however, with the arrival of Leon’s gorgeous son Raoul. Will Linda let the distraction of a dark, mysterious man blind her to the truth about Philippe’s accidents?
Nine Coaches Waiting is my new favorite Mary Stewart. It has a stunning setting, a self-contained and courageous heroine (Leon compares her to Jane Eyre), the best love interests, a layered plot and wonderful supporting characters. I think it also has more character development than in any of the other Stewart’s I’ve read. We really get to know them and what makes them tick. As always, it is also very stylish and has fantastic fifties dialogue.
I highly, highly recommend this novel. It embodies everything I love about Stewart’s writing and ensures her status as my favorite comfort read author for years to come.
Mary Stewart posts so far:
Airs Above the Ground – A Work in Progress
The Gabriel Hounds – bibliolathas
The Little Broomstick – Pining for the West
The Moonspinners – Miss Bibliophile
My Brother Michael – Fleur In Her World
Nine Coaches Waiting – Quixotic Magpie
Stormy Petrel – She Reads Novels
Stormy Petrel – The Worm Hole
This Rough Magic – Quixotic Magpie
Wildfire at Midnight – TBR 313
Wildfire at Midnight – The Bookworm Chronicles
Two days to go!
A Certain Fondness 
I have so many still ahead of me to discover – and this week has added to the list, as I knew it would 🙂 But of the ones I’ve read so far, Nine Coaches Waiting is my favorite too.
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I can’t believe how good it is! My dream gothic novel.
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I’m so glad you loved this one, as it’s my favourite Mary Stewart novel too. It was the first one I read and although I’ve enjoyed a lot of her others, I still haven’t found another one that I love quite as much.
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It was so good, really astoundingly good. I’m so glad I read it this week.
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I love “Nine Coaches Waiting”! It’s a favorite of mine.
I posted about “The Stormy Petrel” on my blog for Mary Stewart week.
http://countrygirlsread.wordpress.com
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Thanks for posting, Theresa! I added your review to the index.
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Nine Coaches Waiting is probably my least frequently read Mary Stewart. Perhaps twice at the most. It strikes me, in my memory, as the one clinging to the absolute gothic romance formula… spunky governess, endangered child, brooding embittered hero, forboding old castle, etc etc. All her others have heroines on the move, in a variety of settings.
But I will make a point of picking this one up again once I get home from vacation. After all, Mary Stewart’s least work (and this isn’t it) is way way above many writers’ best works.
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It is quite gothic and that is part of why I loved it 🙂 It doesn’t have as much of a glamorous setting as some of the others, but I loved the dark Chateau Valmy and I am a sucker for brooding heroes. What is your favorite Stewart?
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This one was a bit over-the-top Gothicky for me, but I agree that she is a very developed heroine, rather like the one in Thornyhold where we discover exactly how unhappy was her childhood. (I’ve finished Thornyhold now, and what a wonderful book it proved to be – and no marriageable cousins around at all!)
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Thornyhold is wonderful! It is the first Stewart I read and I fell in love with her writing and style while reading it. Nine Coaches Waiting is very different, isn’t it?
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This will be my next Mary Stewart… I’m already planning to read more!
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I’m so glad to hear that, JoAnn!
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I’m so glad you enjoyed this one more than Wildfire at Midnight it sounds wonderful!
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It is fantastic – right at the top of my favorites now.
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Nine Coaches Waiting was the first Stewart novel I added to my To Read list. It’s still waiting there, but this makes me want to find a copy and start it immediately!
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If you like gothic, you’ll like Nine Coaches Waiting, but since you liked The Moonspinners you might try My Brother Michael next.
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