@Li: Thanks, Li! The Barbara Michaels books are quite inexpensive at The Book Depository, so I’ll order a couple to try.

@RfP: Thank you so much for the link to Eric’s post. That was written before I started following Teach Me Tonight and I hadn’t seen it before.

@Li: Then I’ll put the same question to you as a put to Lynn: are there any of the Barbara Michaels books that you’d particularly recommend? Yay re: Touch Not the Cat!

And oh, I have to add my vote to Elizabeth Peters/Barbara Michaels recs – I *adore* the Amelia Peabody books. Mad irrational love, really.

Actually I suspect that the seeming suddenness of the romance is a larger problem for many readers. E.g., as you say,

“In order to accept the romance element, one has to believe in love at first sight.”
and
“There were only a few scenes devoted to the development of Gianetta’s romance with Nicholas” [though they had been married, so the relationship was developed before this story began]

That subtler style of romance is what I adore in this type of mid-century Gothic. Eric Selinger captures part of its charm for me in his discussion of Madam, Will You Talk? and “the sexual politics of the mid-1950s–what Charity, and Stewart, could and could not do openly in the text” and the sumptuous food scene in Marseilles.

And I totally second the recommendation for Barbara Michaels. I LOVE her books! She also writes as Elizabeth Peters(Amelia Peabody series), but I much prefer the Barbara Michaels books.

@Li: I bought my copy of Touch Not the Cat from The Book Depository. The only ones I haven’t been able to find are The Wind off the Small Isles, The Moonspinners and Rose Cottage. There is an edition of The Moonspinners on sale at The Book Depository but it appears to be an abridged version aimed at people learning English. I’m sure these books will be reprinted at some point, though. In the meantime, I still have nine to read of the twelve Mary Stewart books now on my shelves!

@Jill D.: Barbara Michaels is another author I haven’t read. Thanks, Jill!

@heidenkind: Woah…Barbara Michaels is Elizabeth Peters? Someone recommended her Amelia Peabody series to me recently. Come to think of it, it might have been you. It was recommended to me because I enjoyed another series but I can’t remember which one it was. Hmm…

I agree with Jill D. that you should check out Elizabeth Peters if you like Mary Stewart, but you should probably go with her other nom de plume, Barbara Michaels. My faves there are Wait For What Will Come, Wings of the Falcon, The Sea King’s Daughter, Stitches in Time. Ammie Come Home is really gothic (and was made into a totally great cheesy movie) and Die for Love Makes fun of the RWA conference, so that’s entertaining.