Customer Reviews

My Brother Michael

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Mary Stewart's knack of taking an ordinary person and placing her in extraordinary circumstances works extremely well in this story of Camilla Haven's vacation to the Greek mainland. Camilla's desire to see the oracle city of Delphi is suddenly facilitated by the appearance of an already-paid-for rental car delivered to her complete with keys as she sits contemplating her boring existence in a cafe on Onomia Square in the heart of Athens. Even though she is not "Simon's girl" --- the person the car is intended for ---- she inpulsively takes the keys and rides off to the fabled city of her daydreams fully intending to meet up with Simon and deliver the car with her apologies. Instead she is drawn into the very personal pilgrimage of a man visiting his brother Michael's grave in a rough and foreign land. Here, on the wild and craggy foothills surrounding Mount Parnassus, the thorny history of Greece meets the present as a mystery surrounding Michael's death is brought to the surface through an earthquake of events in which Camilla finds herself fully entrenched.
As with all of Mary Stewart's novels, setting is a character in itself. The descriptions of the wild countryside, lush with wildflowers, yet harsh with both the climate and history transports the reader to the world of the narrator in a fully empathic manner where one actually experiences the book with all five senses.
This is a perfect story from start to finish--highly recommended.

35 years ago, as a very young girl, I also dreamed of visiting Greece after reading this book and "The Moonspinners". I see that all this time later, Mary Stewart's wonderful stories are still working the same magic... I love all of her books - she will always have a special place among my favorite authors - for her dry and subtle sense of humor, great storytelling ability and of course... that rich descriptive prose (I can't think of anyone else who does it so well). The Merlin books are being reissued - so should all of the romantic suspense (or should they be in the travel section?) :)

I love all of Mary Stewart's early suspense novels and wish I could buy new copies of them because the battered old ones I have are 20-30 years old, yellowing, and falling apart from repeated re-readings.

I particularly loved the ones set in Greece which was a country that had always captured my imagination. This one in particular made me want to go to Greece and see Delphi and The Charioteer. Five years ago when I finally beheld The Charioteer myself and stood on the theater at Delphi and looked out over the mountains my first thoughts were of Mary Stewart. I recommend this book highly to anyone who can find a copy of it. It is well worth because it is a marvelous read as are all of Mary Stewart's earlier books.

Sadly it appears that most of her early wonderful books are out of print, and the only ones still available are mainly the later and less skillful novels - though a few of the good early ones are still available.

Look for this one. It's a winner.

I'm so glad to see some of Mary Stewart's romantic fiction reissued. As a young girl I envisioned Greece while reading My Brother Michael, as a young adult I went there and it was sublime. We read and, then, we experience. If you read to see the world, start at home with Mary Stewart and let your imaginations take you to Europe; her books will grow with you. With Madam Will you Talk in mind, (her best I think) I danced on the entrance to the Pont d'Avignon, I stood on Hadrian's Wall and thought of the Ivy Tree; Corfu did indeed boast men named Spiro, but sadly, no magic dolphin. I wish there were more of her books.

As a fan of Barbara Michaels/Elizabeth Peters work, this book at first moved slower than I am used to. However, the book delivered on many of the elements that makes me most interested in picking up a mystery novel - historical/archeological/mythological themes, exotic settings well described, a strong female heroine, adventure, and maybe just a touch of romance (not too much). What I found most interesting/facinating was Mary Stewart's ability to paint with words a richly detailed/atmospheric landscape (in this case the rugged mountains of Greece and historically significant center of Delphi) was enough to leave a lasting impression, like snapshots in your mind of time spent in a place that just by being there spiritually uplifted you in some way. Armchair travelers with an interest in experiencing through osmosis impressions left on people upon visiting historical/mythological places will like this book.

Other recommended authors: Sharyn McCrumb, Nevada Barr, Jessica Speart, Beverly Connor, Lyn Hamilton, Susanna Kearsley, and Kathleen Skye Moody.

Nothing ever happens to Camilla. She has never ventured into any risky affairs, has played it safe all her life. And as she writes these lamentations to her sister at a café in Athens, opportunity for adventure comes knocking. A simple case of mistaken identity leads her to Delphi, where she is to deliver a car to an unknown man named Simon. She finds a man named Simon, a dark and handsome Englishman, but he claims he is not the one she is looking for. As they drive around looking for this other Simon, Camilla learns that this Simon has a strong reason for being in Greece. His brother Michael, a WWII fighter, may or may not be dead. Either way, Simon wants to know what happened to him. And that is how Camilla encounters danger in ways she could have never imagined. Nothing is as it seems. One thing is certain: she will never begin a letter with "Nothing ever happens to me" again.

Mary Stewart has written some compelling novels full of suspense, danger, atmosphere and romance. My Brother Michael, first published in the early 1960s, is not an exception. This is set in Greece like The Moonspinners, but the plot is quite different. There are twists and turns that only Stewart can achieve with her brilliant writing. You feel the suspense and tension -- and you can't put the book down until it reaches its wonderful climax. Greece comes alive with every rich description and subtle gothic atmosphere. Description was one of Stewart's finest abilities, and you almost feel as though you were in Greece and amid all of the tension. This is a wonderful novel. It is almost as good as my three favorite Stewart novels (Nine Coaches Waiting, The Ivy Tree and Madam, Will You Talk?) and right in the same level as The Moonspinners. I look forward to reading more of her older books.

As Camilla Haven sits in a cafe in Athens and writes those very words in a letter to her sister, she has no idea the twists and turns her life is soon going to take. A strange man comes and gives her the keys to a rental car, telling her she must take it to Monsieur Simon in Delphi right away - a matter of life and death. Since she had wanted to go to Delphi and no one comes to claim the car Camilla decides on a lark to take the car and go and she soon finds herself mixed up in a mystery involving Simon Lester. Simon has come to visit the scene where his brother was murdered during WWII, and to discover the secret behind his death that has laid buried under the rubble of an earthquake.

And that is all I'm going to tell you. In true Stewart fashion, Camilla and Simon's story take many twists and turns along with the prerequisite nail biting life and death conclusion. While plot wise I didn't enjoy this quite as much as Moonspinners (things got a bit slow in the middle), I very much enjoyed Stewarts magical descriptions of the Greek countryside, and most especially the ruins at Delphi. Wow, just wow, I was all over the net looking for pictures and seriously considered booking a trip to see for myself. Nobody but nobody in this genre does it better, it's like being there.

This is a wonderful story about a woman caught in an unfortunate series of events, leading her down a path of adventure, danger, and romance. And all this takes place in the glorious surroundings of Greece! What captured me the most, however, was the way Stewart depicted the subtle love affair between the two main characters. One can only imagine the feelings between them, yet one left to draw their own conclusions.

Mary Stewart's, My Brother Michael, was a singularly interesting reading experience for me, to say the least.

I received the old, tattered copy from my library sporting a particularly garish aqua and yellow library bound graphic cover and consisting of browned, wavy pages (looking like the book had been dropped into a vat of coffee) and emitting a distinctive....musty....odor. Dog-earned and ripped pages, and the doodles of (surely) a five year old child also graced Dame Stewart's novel of suspense featuring lovely Camilla Haven and Simon Lester as they search the ruins of Delphi to learn what happened to Simon's brother, Michael, 12 years previously.

I tell you all this in advance in an attempt to make you understand the complete allure of Stewart's wonderful writing talent in the face of so many reader obstacles. Despite the cringe-worthy factor of holding this book without the protection of rubber gloves and a face mask, My Brother Michael kept me enthralled from the first coffee-stained page (oh, please let it be coffee), to the last tattered page.

As a special unexpected bonus, I read Stewart's beautiful Chapter 7 (in which Camilla and Simon tour the ruins of the temple of Delphi by moonlight) under the faux-moonlight of a street light in a Church parking lot while awaiting my daughter to leave a school function. How cool to sit in my dimly illuminated car and imagine a hero so suave, so educated, so utterly Stewart-ish that he could stand among the moonlit ruins of a Grecian amphitheater and recite a stanza of Sophocles' Electra (in Greek, no less!) and then in English with a swoon-worthy Brit-accent. Only a Stewart hero could get away with THAT! Be still, my romantic-suspense heart....

I love most of Stewart's romantic suspense books and in particular the ones with a Greek setting - My Brother Michael, This Rough Magic, The Moonspinners.

This book in particular has the biggest build-up to a climax of any book I've ever read, even outside of Stewart. Towards the end of the book, and starting with the heroine discovering a dead body while she is alone in a cave (a person she knows who's been tortured to death.) It's scene after scene, shock after shock, she receives and it's nail-biting.

I remember reading it as a teenager and I got so freaked out, I set the book aside during the most suspenseful part and walked around the house for 5 or 10 minutes. I had to let it stew before finding out if the villain discovers the heroine in hiding, because it was fairly certain that he would.

For some reason, in this book, I feel a little disconnected to her main characters, more so than her other books. Stewart rarely gives much background on her hero and heroine, the reader infers who they are by their actions and words. Their importance is in the now, not the past. But perhaps in this book, when the past is invoked so much due to the hero's brother Michael, there may be a feel that the hero and heroine's life stories are, by contrast, incomplete.

I will say I also appreciate the time-frame when Stewart wrote most of her suspense novels. It's post WWII, which usually figures as a background to the story or characters. It's also pre-1970's and 80's when most women's literature churned out dumb, innocent heroines who bore no resemblance to anything that might be considered "feminist." As such Stewart's heroines are allowed to be intelligent, brave, and to definitely take the initiative in a scary situation. Don't mistake me, they do not wave a feminist banner (it was before that time really) they are merely being what Stewart thought women were - smart and courageous under fire.

That said, however, the heroine in this one is slightly more timid than others. She was in a previous relationship where it was brought home to her how much she couldn't keep up with a brave and adventurous man. It is something she has to confront within the story. The hero figures this out, and he is not the type to beat her up emotionally with what she feels is a failing on her part, as her previous lover was.

If you enjoy suspense books, I would definitelly pick this one up. It's wonderful reading!