This Rough Magic (Oxford Bookworms Simplified ELT Readers: 1800 Headwords: Level [Import] [Paperback]

Mary Stewart (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 122 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press; Abridged Ed edition (2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0194230740
• ISBN-13: 978-0194230742
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,355,884 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

53 of 54 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece of Magical Writing, September 15, 2003

By 

Diana F. Von Behren "reneofc" (Kenner, LA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: THIS ROUGH MAGIC (Mass Market Paperback)

As in other Mary Stewart classics, the action of "This Rough Magic" takes place in a mere matter of days. Lucy Waring, a twenty-something actress steps off the London stage and onto the idyllic Ionian island of Corfu. In a the course of a morning swim, paradise transforms to a place of sinister doings: someone shoots at a tamed dolphin, a young Greek drowns off the coast of Albania, and a smuggler washes up dead in a nearby cove. Stewart uses all her formidable skill, crafting a strong story that is both literary and fast moving. Told from Lucy's point-of-view, the reader's is kept as taut as a wire as the tension mounts not only while Lucy attempts to determine the identity of the wrongdoer and the reason for his misdemeanors but as she inadvertently puts herself in harm's way.

Playfully, Stewart pulls out all the stops, introducing one of her most cleverly contrived secondary characters, Sir Julian Gale, a Lawrence Olivier facsimile whose theory that the island setting of Shakespeare's "Tempest" and Corfu are one and the same adds much charm and ambiance to an already gloriously depicted exotic locale. Cleverer still, she employs the idea of the deus ex machina in a most enjoyable sequence, where the 'god' is a young Greek male and the 'machine', his improbable motorcycle.

As always, the Stewart heroine impeccably relates each event as it occurs with an astonishing literacy--the language employed borders on poetry; the reader actually smells every flower, is blinded by the lush colors of the foilage and stung by the salt of the Ionian Sea. In kind, Stewart characterizes her Greeks with an affectionate curiosity and love of the stranger; their traditions and rituals are reported with much respect and admiration.

As noted in some of my other reviews of Stewart's work, this author's masterly use of plot, character, language and style puts her in a genre all her own. She is quite definitely incomparable. 'This Rough Magic" is one of my favorite Stewart selections: one of a trio of novels set in Greece and the Greek Isles that uses the strained politics of the late 50s and early 60s as a backdrop to catapult a rather normal UK female protagonist into an abnormal situation where the British sense of responsibility is shown to positive advantage.

Recommended with the wish that all the Stewart suspense tales are reissued in trade paperback with Reader's Questions.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant descriptive suspense and romance, June 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: This Rough Magic (Library Binding)

An out of work actress staying in Corfu with her rich pregnant sister becomes embroiled in a dangerous mystery after encountering a famous reclusive actor and his passionate son. Throw in a few murders and our heroine is out to determine the who and why. One of Ms Stewart's best novels, it is totally absorbing describing a country and lifestyle in such vivid detail, and impressing her characters with warmth, understanding and plenty of realism.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Mary Stewart ever, July 21, 2002

By 

"undomiel" - See all my reviews

This review is from: THIS ROUGH MAGIC (Mass Market Paperback)

This Rough Magic is one of those perfect books-it draws you on with suspense, involves you deeply with jewel-cut prose, and unlike most Stewart novels, is quite funny in spots. I love this book for its lightheartedness and its tragedy and its lovely romance, if that makes any sense. This is perfect romantic suspense, great for constant rereading.