Airs Above the Ground

I have loved every novel written by Mary Stewart, some more than others. I read this one well over twenty years ago and many times since then. It is one of my many favorite of her books. In her books you get to travel; you feel as if you are really there. I have wanted to visit almost every place I have visited in her books. I too had pledged to see the Lippizaner stallions someday & I finally got to see them a few years ago. They were wonderful of course. There is magic in all the Mary Stewart books; the relationships in this one in particular were warm and appealing.

With a backdrop of a fairy-tale castle set in the Austrian alps and the music of Der Rosenkavalier playing below from a traveling circus, an old horse dances in a meadow, executing the precise dressage movements called the "Airs Above the Ground" of the famous Lippanzaners of the Spanish Riding School. The only witnesses are Londoners, Vanessa March, and her companion teenaged Tim Lacy thrown together by chance as Tim pursues his dream of untying his mother's apron strings by applying for a job at the famous riding school and Vanessa searches for her errant husband, Lewis, supposedly away on business in Sweden, but documented on a UK newsreel with a beautiful blonde during an out of control circus fire near Graz. As usual, Mary Stewart creates a fine story where intrepid characters move along a lushly described exotic locale. The delineation between good and evil is clearly defined. Like the other Stewart heroines, Charity Selbourne of 'Madame Will You Talk' comes quickly to mind, Vanessa unhesitatingly does the 'right thing.' Although she has the stereotypical loveliness, intelligence, and quick wittedness with a bit of the acerbic tongue of a married woman that makes her narration marvelously fun, she is never obssessed with superficiality like so many more modern 'romance' heroines. But, of course, a Stewart romance is a romance of the most highly literal type; the love scenes are suggested rather than depicted. The narration moves you along as if you were one and the same as the heroine; you breath her air, your heart clenches with terror when hers does, your skin prickles when in the presence of the ethereal and you quickly adopt and share her high value system. Above all the atmosphere of magic liberally sprinkling the air is maintained throughout so that even the most coincidental and improbable happenings seem to gel and fit with a puzzler's adept precision. When the tale draws to an end, you sigh with disappointment at turning that last page and you wish that Stewart had written three times as many novels so you had more to rediscover. I listened to the audio presentation of this novel read by Jane Asher; it is very well-done, well worth the investment to listen to over and over again and see that poignant image of the horse dancing alone in the meadow just one more time in your mind's eye. Fantastic!

Mary Stewart's Ivy Tree got me hooked on reading and I've read every book she's written. The villain in this book is so memorable I have always remembered his name. This book like all of her books marries romance and mystery but in a way no modern books do, it is romance, not sex. All of her books give you information on either classic works or other historic backgrounds, like the Spanish Riding School, that I got big points from my Humanities teachers from things I learned from Mary Stewart, I never told them how I knew the information. This is one of her best, the people are memorable and the horse is miraculous. Just a treat all round. Read all her mysteries you can't go wrong

Like other reviewers, I read most of Mary Stewart's novels as a teenager when they were called "Gothics". Nine Coaches Waiting and Wildfire at Midnight were wonderful, and among my favorites, but Airs Above the Ground lingers in my memory as the best of Mary Stewart's works. The scene with the old horse on the hillside gives me chills and brings tears to my eyes every time I read it, or even think about it. I went to see the Lippizaners in Austria just because of the influence of this book. Read it--you won't be disappointed.

Mary Stewart writes great mystery with romance and at the same times teaches you something. In this book the information about the Lipizan horses is wonderful. And this is the only villain whose name I've always remembered. When I was young these weren't called Romances but Gothic Novels and Mary Stewart was always the best.