My favorite romantic suspense stories have a hero who is kind, funny, and protective without being domineering. Of all the Mary Stewart books I’ve read Simon (who I think of as looking like Indiana Jones for some reason) of My Brother Micheal is the only one to totally fit that bill (no angry bruising heroine’s wrist for this Stewart hero). It’s Simon and his relationship with Camilla that partly makes this my favorite Stewart book. He helps her out of fixes (she really cannot back up a car!) and wants her to stick around for his own adventure as well. And-he believes in her. “‘You underrate yourself so shockingly, Camilla. You’re not to play second fiddle any more.” ❤️

The other reason this is my favorite is because of the heroine. Camilla (who I think of as another Sarah Jane Smith from Doctor Who 🤗) is a woman just coming out of a relationship where she was made to feel less than. She’s unsure of herself and self depreciating, as her honest but funny review of her driving through the streets of Arachova prove. When an opportunity for adventure comes she jumps at it, much to her own surprise. It’s through this uncharacteristic decision to grab adventure by the tail that she meets Simon and the real adventure begins. It was lovely to see her grow more self assured. By the end where “the mark had gone from the third finger of my left hand. There was no sign at all of the pale circle where Philip’s ring had been” that Camilla has really come into her own.