Take A Chance Challenge # 7: Touch Not The Cat - Mary Stewart


The 7th Challenge in the Take a Chance Challenge by Jenner of Find Your Next Book here is read a Random Bestseller. The instructions were:


Go to Random.org and, using the True Random Number Generator, enter the number 1950 for the min. and 2008 for the max. and then hit generate. Then go to Adult New York Times Bestseller listings and find the year that Random.org generated for you and click on it. Then find the bestseller list for the week that would contain your birthday for that year. Choose one of the bestsellers from the list that comes up, read it and write about it.
The random generator came up with the year 1976. I went to my birthday week and choose "Touch Not The Cat" by Mary Stewart. The book had actually been on the bestseller list for 16 weeks in 1976. It was actually a very interesting way to choose to read a book.

Back cover: "Bryony Ashley knows that her family's grand estate is both hell and paradise--once elegant and beautiful, yet mired in debt and shrouded in shadow. Devastated by her father's sudden strange death abroad, she is nonetheless relieved to learn the responsibility of running Ashley Court has fallen to a cousin. Still, her father's final, dire warning about a terrible family curse haunts her days and her dreams.

Because Bryony possesses a "gift"--a "Sight" that has long enabled her to communicate with the mysterious stranger who is her destiny...the lover-to-be who waits for now at Ashley Court. But passion is not all that will greet Bryony upon her return--for the crumbling walls of the old mansion guard dark secrets, tragic memories..and inescapable peril."


Interesting story. Ever since Bryony has been a child, she has been telepathically linked to a man, her love, but he's never revealed himself. They speak to each other and can feel each other's feelings. It may be one of her cousins, but she isn't sure. When she returns to Ashley Court, he delays revealing himself even though he is there, close by. While she is at the estate, she tries to decipher her father's last words and uncover the mystery surrounding books, pictures and antique pieces that have gone missing from the estate. Her father's death wasn't an accident and everything seemed to be linked. Touch Not the Cat is a timeless romance and murder mystery. Makes me want to go back and read her Arthurian Saga: The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment.

5 comments:

  1. This sounds really, really interesting! The only thing I've read by Mary Stewart is The Crystal Cave, and I enjoyed that. It's been years (since '94, I believe). I think I might need to pick this one up.

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  2. Her Arthurian Saga is what drew me to read everything I could about King Arthur/Merlin...loved every single book. So now if this one makes you want to re-read those then I just may want to read this one!!

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  3. Well I'm impressed! Never heard of this book but it sounds great. Time travel mystery, right up my alley. Good review!

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  4. I remember reading my mom's c. 1970 copy of this book when I was little. I was in a knot about who her telepathic lover was! She had a pretty good panel of guys to choose from, too. :)

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  5. Well this just sounds like a really freaky kind of book!!! I love the idea of a "telepathic" soulmate but that doesn't reveal himself. And then a murder mystery wrapped up in there too. I might have to check this out! I"m glad you got such an interesting one!

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