Customer Reviews

Touch Not the Cat

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
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This is an old friend I turn to when I want to get away for awhile. The story(ies) are well written, the characters are believable and the setting is done so well it would be tempting to try and locate 'Ashley Court' on a trip to England. In other words this is yet another wonderfully done Mary Stewart.

The story centers around Bryony Ashley, her family and the family estate and psychic link they share. The story moves swifty, beginning with the death-by-suspicious-circumstances of Bryony's father which forces her return to Ashley Court, the family home. Her cousins, the townspeople and tenants of the Court all enter into the story. Past family scandals surface interlaced with "Romeo and Juliet' references enter into the Bryony's life as she struggles to sort out her family's past issues, present dilemmas,
and future. The psychic link is not overdone, it appears just enough to add interest to the story. The mystery has just enough twists to keep the reader interested and surpised. The action is intense and the romance is sweet.

This vintage (1976) book has aged well. I have recommended it to both high school students and my mother with no complaints from anyone.

Like the recent movie/book sensation 'Possession' by A.S. Byatt,'Touch Not the Cat'(written in 1975) combines a literary mystery with excerpts from the past, poetry, Shakespeare, history and the gift of mind transferrence to deliver a wonderfully fulfilling tale that is a joy to read.
Stewart employs her usual fantastic sense of place in describing Ashley estate and its environs down to the last daffodil. It is her main character, narrator Byrony Ashley who is both possessed and possessor. From childhood, she and an unknown Ashley cousin have had the ability to communicate with their minds at great length, at great distances. Byrony's need to know the identity of this mind interloper/lover drives most of the novel's plot. As in the Byatt book, 'Touch Not the Cat' employs different levels to tell the story of parallel lovers, past and present; as we discover the state of affairs between the two Victorian lovers, we are illumined as to how it helps Byrony identify her soulmate and simultaneously solve a present mystery involving the state of the Ashley property after Byrony's father is killed in an automobile accident.
Stewart cleverly uses Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet to facilitate the present day lovers' evolving discoveries involving themselves, the estate and the past. Her effervascent interplay and dialogue between the two main characters borders on perfect; her portayal of love's discovery and fulfillment causes the reader to nod and laugh with satisfaction. The tantillizing aspects of ESP add just the right degree of the supernatural to a well-constructed tale that has just about everything else.
Stewart fans will be thrilled that this particular heroine not only gets her man, but allows the reader to be privy to their marital bliss.
Recommended highly especially in audio book form read delightfully by Davina Porter.

this is one of my favorite stories by Mary Stewart. It has a unique approach to "love" from a psychic standpoint. I dont want to spoil the story for anyone, but I will say, this is One of the best reads!!! Many current authors seem to be "ascribing" to this formula, I mean who wouldnt want a " true love" even on the metaphysical realm???

This was the first Mary Stewart book I read 30 years ago and it was entirely captivating from page one. I loved the ESP aspect, the intrigue, the ancient history that's the mystery. It's just a wonderful story to get lost in. I subsequently have read numerous other of Mary Stewart's books, but find this one my favorite. Her novels set in Greece depict more "lady-like" situations: while the protagonist is in danger, it's of a tamer variety and a kiss with the male lead seals her romantic fate. Nice, escapist fiction.

I picked up this book in the sci-fi section, but the only thing vaguely sci-fi about it is the use of telepathy. The setting is a perfectly normal England of the 1970s. The book starts slowly - in fact, all of the action is slow - and the author tends to fill the plot with an almost burdensome amount of details. If you can get through all that, it helps out later. The main drive through the book is Bryony's search for her telepathic lover (she doesn't know who he is) and the repercussions of her father's death. Some of the characters are nicely drawn. Others are sketchy, suffering from that evil villain cast syndrome. Stewart does a nice job creating an atmosephere where you sympathize with the main character (Bryony) and feel her uncertainty about who to trust. When one of the great mysteries of the book is finally revealed, you will find yourself surprised and relieved. It snuck up on me - I had to go back and reread key parts of the book. Sure enough - the clues had been there the whole time, and I hadn't even noticed. The subtle way this mystery is implanted makes the book worth reading. I found the ending average, and not particularly original, but the overall product is well worth your time.

A re-read from several decades ago, the suspense novels of Mary Stewart never fail to please. In this offering, penned during the groovy 1970's, Stewart was no doubt making Touch Not the Cat more relevant for the time period by adding the gift of telepathy to her heroine Bryony Ashley, and Bryony's mysterious telepathic lover.

Who is this mind-melding hero? Is it one of her cousins: Emory, James or Francis Ashley? Admittedly, for most American readers, this is a pretty icky coupling, but apparently Brits are/were ok with it, so I tried my darnest and get over the revulsion of placing myself in any perilous situation where romantic attraction to my own obnoxious cousin Scott would ever cause my heart to palpitate with love....uh, nope, can't do it...

But anyway, if you can get past this concept, the plot is pretty good, and has all the suspense you've come to expect if you're a Mary Stewart fan. In fact, Touch Not the Cat really kept me mystified as to the identity of the telepathic lover right up until the reveal...and even then, Stewart didn't make it any easier for the reader to breathe a sigh of relief and mutter, "so that's who it was!".

Not quite as strong IMO as some of her earlier suspense books, Touch Not the Cat is still a fun read, and well worth the time. I shouldn't have waited 30 years for a re-read :)

Bryony Ashley's father is critically injured by a hit and run driver, and he's only able to live long enough to leave a cryptic warning that she's in danger, the rest of his words seem to make no sense at all. Or do they? Devastated, she returns to her cottage near Ashley Court, the family's ancient estate in England, which cannot be sold or broken up without the approval of all members of the Ashley family. As she tries to sort the puzzle left by her father, Bryony also has a secret of her own to resolve - longer than she can remember she's had a telepathic connection with an unknown "lover" who she believes will reveal himself in the flesh to her when the time is right, and she's always felt it was her cousin James. Or is it James' younger brother Francis? I promise, you will never guess.

Ashley soon finds things amiss at the Court. Small, but valuable items are missing. A mysterious stranger is spotted shuffling through church records, and a book of ancient records turns up missing. Who is the Cat her fathered referred to in his last words - the family emblem of the Scottish Wildcat and their motto Touch not the cat? Or is Cat for Cathy, the Underhill's daughter? How is it that the long neglected garden maze is the same design as the family emblem? Is there a secret tied into the pavilion at the center of the maze, and the Ashley ancestor who built it for his lovers? What secret does the book found in the old library with the same family emblem hold?

Need the answers? Read it for yourself. Although this one started off a bit slow and it took me forever to see where Stewart was taking the story, once she gets all the lose ends wrapped up they all came together in a spectacular nail-biting finish in the midst of a whopper of a storm with deadly consequences. There are plentiful twists, turns and surprises that will keep you guessing and turning the pages. A definite must for Stewart fans.

Although Mary Stewart is best known for her Arthurian series (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment, aka The Merlin Trilogy), she was also a prolific producer of extremely popular suspense and historical novels throughout the 1970's. Out of print for years and therefore treasured by those lucky enough to have original copies, most were suddenly re-issued as mass market paperbacks in the late 90's by an imprint of Harper Collins. Imagine my delight! Stewart has a particular talent for structuring a modern story in an historical framework, usually set in her native England or Scotland, and the curiously English knack for creating realistic, likable characters that neither over- or underwhelm the reader.

This oddly-named (and the name is part of the mystery) novel is told almost exclusively by Bryony Ashley, a young woman mourning the sudden death of her father and returning to the crumbling family estate to untangle the complicated legal mess with her cousins. Bryony also has a secret she's kept for years, which is that she somehow communicates telepathically with a presence she thinks of only as `Lover'. This telepathy is an Ashley trait that pops up every so often in the line and is shared only by other Ashleys, which can only mean that her mysterious mental companion is someone she knows from the family, but who? One of her cousins, the mischievous twins? Or someone else entirely? As this mystery Bryony has lived with all of her life seems to be coming to light, the strange and unexpected death of her father leaves Ashley with a riddle to solve as she tries to understand a final, ominous warning he leaves her from his deathbed. It begins trivially, with small but valuable items missing from the old house, and a glimpse of a cloaked man lurking in the overgrown maze and around the family chapel.

The atmosphere is enchanting, a perfect blending of the encroaching modern world upon a life and time that has faded into memory - a time of rambling, pre-war estates in the green English hills, with histories that go even further back to an era of crests and swords and family honor. It bears Stewart's singular, indelible stamp of originality and subtle suspense, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I can't wait to get to the other re-releases.

If you appreciate an 'old fashioned' tale free of graphic intimacy and violence, if you appreciate vivid description, romance and intrigue this is for you. I read all but one of Mary Stewart's books in my early twenty's through late thirties. Now, nearing seventy, I am rereading them and cherishing the stories I read in my young years. I have divested myself of hundreds of books. Mary Stewart's remain a constant. "Touch Not the Cat" remains a favorite. It tells of a young woman who has been linked with a young man from early years. The link is vivid ie each can 'read' the other's mind and emotions. The link has always been trusted until murder has been done and the woman must shut off her thoughts from the person who evolves into her mental 'lover'. She not only experiences the loss of her beloved father, when foul play is suspected, she can no longer trust even the one with whom she is most connected. A good read...

I read this book on holiday (Thanksgiving) at an Aunt's home and while tending to her black lab I saw this book on her bookshelf. The story was a neat idea of how ESP between "soul" mates from the Great Beyond become reunited and because of their unique communication skills they solve a mystery that has plagued their Clan or Family Tree for years.