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Airs Above the Ground

The suspenseful love story from the Queen of the Romantic Mystery

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Airs Above the Ground

By: Mary Stewart
Narrated by: Antonia Whillans
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The original writer of romantic suspense, Mary Stewart leads her readers on a thrilling journey across mid-century Europe in this tale of adventure and deception, sure to be loved by fans of Agatha Christie and Barbara Pym.

Vanessa March's husband Lewis is meant to be on a business trip in Stockholm - so why does he briefly appear in newsreel footage of a fire at a circus in Vienna, with his arm around another woman? Vanessa flies to Austria to find her husband, inadvertently becoming involved in a mystery that spans three countries... and the famous dancing stallions of the Spanish Riding School.

The moonlight flooded the meadow, blanching all colours to its own ghostly silver. The pines were very black. As the stallion rose in the last magnificent rear of the levande, the moonlight poured over him bleaching his hide so that for perhaps five or six seconds he was no longer an old broken-down piebald, but a haute école stallion of the oldest line in Europe.

'Mary Stewart is magic' New York Times

'From opening to finale, this zestful romantic adventure grips, amuses, frightens and delights' Sunday Telegraph

'One of the great British storytellers of the 20th century' Independent

(P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited©1965 Mary Stewart Action & Adventure International Mystery & Crime Mystery Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Romance Romantic Suspense Women's Adventure Women's Fiction Suspense Fiction Exciting
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Critic reviews

From opening to finale, this zestful romantic adventure grips, amuses, frightens and delights
Mary Stewart is magic
She set the bench mark for pace, suspense and romance - with a great dollop of escapism as the icing
A comfortable chair and a Mary Stewart: total heaven. I'd rather read her than most other authors.
The stylish, educated novels of Mary Stewart . . . arguably inspired the deluge of bestselling romantic fiction that has flooded the market in recent decades.
Mary Stewart sprinkled intelligence around like stardust . . . She built the bridge between classic literature and modern popular fiction. She did it first and she did it best (Melanie Reid)
A writer of considerable skill . . . [with an] intuitive feel for the past and its re-creation in vivid, poetic detail
A wonderful wordsmith . . . Stewart was among the first authors to seamlessly integrate a mystery and a romance thus allowing the two to come alive and complement each other.
All stars
Most relevant
An exciting and very entertaining story by Mary Stewart. Unfortunately, the narration was extremely poor with the narrator making little/no effort to differentiate between the different characters and between males and females.

Brilliant story let down by a poor narrator

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Hadn't read this since it was first published, so a delightful awakening of that initial enjoyment. Literally couldn't stop listening, and still shed a year at the perfect ending! Super!

Another Favourite!

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This is the one Mary Stewart book that, despite being such a fan, I somehow had never read. I rather enjoyed not knowing what was coming, and just letting the narrator take me wherever the plot would lead. It's a story that takes a little while to get to the exciting parts but, once it does, there's no stopping it. There was plenty of humour too. I liked it all very much. The narrator was at her best with the narrative parts, with creating suspense, and with dialogue that involved people speaking in differing accents. But, like a previous reviewer, I did have a little difficulty knowing who was speaking in those dialogues involving Vanessa and Timothy, where the author hadn't written he said/she said to help me out. But this is a minor quibble, given that the content of most of the dialogue made it clear enough. The narrator certainly came into her own with the scenes of great jeopardy. And also with the story of one very special horse. I absolutely defy anyone - animal lover or no - not to reach for the tissues when Old Piebald is centre stage. The epilogue had me in bits. So, all in all, very enjoyable. I know I'll listen to it again.

Very enjoyable and, in places, very likely to bring on tears!

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I read this book many, many years ago.
it was as good this time as the first

years later

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Although I had read this many years ago, there was much I hadn't remembered. Lots of action, unexpected turns with a bit of humour added.

A magical tale

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