Chrissie Whitley's Reviews > The Gabriel Hounds

Christy Mansel happens upon her cousin (more on that in a bit) while traveling with a large group in Lebanon and the area. While she had already planned to break away from the group and stay on her own for a bit, running into her cousin Charles only adds to the excitement of her plans. In addition to spending time with him, they discuss going to see their Great Aunt Harriet who lives nearby, and who fashions herself as a Lady Stanhope-type. Charles is unable to stay in the city just then, but after a few days he will be returning to spend time with Christy.

Christy takes to touring the area and ends up sort of, mostly intentional, paying a visit on her own (well, with her driver) to her great aunt's estate, Dar Ibrahim. The strangeness of the meeting, the affected atmosphere, and the suspicious young man living with Harriet (who is in her eighties), leaves Christy with an unsettled feeling, despite the attempts at reassurances presented by the man, John Lethman. After all, her Great Aunt Harriet was always eccentric and set herself apart from the family. However, growing concerns from Charles, who knew Harriet better, leads the pair on a stealthy mission to discover the truth.

Not on par with the only other novel by Stewart that I've read, The Ivy Tree, but not lacking in beautiful sentences for establishing place and atmosphere. In fact, aside from some specifics, I liked the two main characters, Christy and Charles — they were witty, confident, and self-aware. The plot got away from Stewart a bit, especially at the very end when everything imploded — plot and all.

Stewart goes to great effort to explain that Christy and Charles are second cousins (they share the same great-grandfather), and though they were often mistaken for twins by those outside the family when they were younger, they were sort of, mostly, joked about as betrothed within the family. However, I have seen that this was for the benefit of the American audience back when this was first published. In the UK edition, Christy and Charles are not only first cousins, but double cousins, as their fathers are twins — so genetically they are more like half-siblings. This is a big ick factor with her American audience and as the two romantically pair off by the novel's end (this is no spoiler, as it's obvious from the beginning), I just had trouble thinking of them as written. Especially since they also had been raised close to each other and acted more like siblings.

In addition there were some problematic sentences (one in particular in the last few pages) that made this one a little less desirable. But I will still continue to explore Stewart's writing — hoping for more of The Ivy Tree and less of The Gabriel Hounds.