• The Ivy Tree

  • By: Mary Stewart
  • Narrated by: Amy Molloy
  • Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (204 ratings)

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The Ivy Tree  By  cover art

The Ivy Tree

By: Mary Stewart
Narrated by: Amy Molloy
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Publisher's summary

Mary Stewart, one of the great British storytellers of the 20th century, transports listeners to rural Northumberland for this tale of romance, ambition and deceit - a perfect fit for fans of Agatha Christie and Barbara Pym.

Whitescar is a beautiful old house and farm situated in Roman Wall country. It will make a rich inheritance for its heirs, but in order to secure it, they enlist the help of a young woman named Mary who bears remarkable resemblance to missing Whitescar heiress Annabel Winslow. Their deception will spark a powder keg of ambition, obsession and long-dead love.

The ivy had reached for the tree and only the tree's upper branches managed to thrust the young gold leaves of early summer through the strangling curtain. Eventually the ivy would kill it....

©1961 Mary Stewart (P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Limited
  • Unabridged Audiobook
  • Categories: Romance

Critic reviews

"There are few to equal Mary Stewart." (Daily Telegraph)

"Mary Stewart is magic." (New York Times)

"One of the great British storytellers of the 20th century." (Independent)

What listeners say about The Ivy Tree

Average customer ratings
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Narrator ruined one of my favorite books

Narrator boring, slow and terrible accent. Sped it up and made it better but still disappointing.

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17 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Narrator should be reading Pooh, not mystery

Need narrator who gives a good interpretation, and reflects it in her reading. She bored me to death.

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15 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Very poor narration

Why did the publisher choose such a poor (and apparently inexperienced) narrator? Ugly accent, sounds US American, not really either Canadian or British. I have purchased several other of the new Mary Stewart books, including This Rough Magic, which I think is the best of all, and the narration was much better

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10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Poor Narrator

This is a fantastic book written by Mary Stewart. I have read it countless times. I would say it is my favorite of her books. However, the narrator is not very good. She basically just reads the book. Very little change in voice. Not enough emotion is conveyed by the narrator. She does not do the book justice.

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8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Ms Stewart is quite the wordsmith

I loved this book. Ms Stewart has such a gift for describing the setting....you feel as though you are physically there with the main characters. Amazing story, well crafted from beginning to end.

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4 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    2 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Narrator's accent took away from the story

I had already read this book a number of times, but was looking forward to hearing it on Audible. I had listened to 11 of Mary Stewart's books before listening to this one. Each of the narrators had added to the experience of listening to the reading of much loved stories. Their voices had enhanced the stories, making me enjoy them even more than when I had read them by myself in the past. This narrator, however, broke the pattern of pleasure. First of all, the accent of the main character was odd and inconsistent. I normally feel sad when a good book comes to an end, but this time, I felt relief. It was shame because it did not do justice to a very good author. Second, the pace was laborious, and the rhythm of speech for the "Canadian" accent was off. It would have been so much better for the entire reading to have been done without this switching back and forth between Scottish, Irish, English, and Canadian accents,

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3 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    1 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Mary Stewart's Most Complex Heroine

As I've been making my way through the new recordings of Stewart's novels, I've noticed that they're mostly dated by the heavy smoking the characters do. In THE IVY TREE, the lead character does smoke a lot--especially in the first half of the book, but the lead character here also says really annoying things about women being hysterical BECAUSE they're women. She was pretty unlikeable in many ways throughout much of the book, making me wonder why so many readers had said that this was their favorite Mary Stewart. However, her moral compass seems pretty true--even if that might not always seem to be clear. She's not afraid of work, and she is not spoiled or selfish. She really cares about those she loves. She doesn't fall into the arms of just any handsome man who comes along either. In the end, I came to like her, but it was hard at first.

The complaints by many about the narrator, Amy Molloy, are true. Her ability to use a North American accent is clearly trained but inconsistent at best. There are strange pronunciations for any dialect of English I've heard. Who says "tomatoes" so that the "mat" rhymes with "cat"? Molloy does. I think many of these pronunciation problems such as the vowels in "careful" and "calm," come from Molloy's Irish background, but a good editor should have caught those. Why even choose an Irish actress when there are only two Irish characters in the book? I suspect there was no real editor. Worse than all the pronunciation problems was the tediously slow reading speed and the sheer lack of ability to read well, pausing so often in the incorrect places such as between an adjective and a noun. This is really disqualifying for an audiobook reader, and the publisher is to blame for not hiring any of many really good readers such as Jennifer Ikeda, who read very well and can handle accents too. I turned the speed to 1.25x to get through the slow reading speed.

In short, this is a very good novel, with very good writing, and a complex heroine. The narrator, however, leaves much to be desired. I won't buy any more books with Amy Molloy listed as narrator.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Dated and a bit overlong

I loved Mary Stewart's works when I was young. Listening now I see that her portrayal of women, at least in this novel is silly and ineffectual. Stewart makes quite a few uses of "well, she's a woman after all," to describe weak character, poor decision making and general stupid behavior.

I hadn't noticed this when I was young, but it's quite evident now that I'm 57.

The narrator tried, but didn't manage to convey urgency. Her voice was slow and melancholy throughout. The attempts at accents were distracting. Sometimes it's better for narrators not to try.

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2 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

unsurprisingly amazing

I have read several books by Mary Stewart and I have always enjoyed them. I am particularly impressed with the variance in style. This book almost had a mystery writers style where many others are more romantic thriller. The performance was spot on and brought the characters to life with the effect of a full cast. I am very happy with my purchase.

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1 person found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Well-written story, but not my favorite

The plot is fascinating and the author does an excellent job of bringing everything full circle at the end. However, this is my least favorite of the Mary Stewart books I have read (about 7-8 at this point). The female protagonist is involved in a deception, therefore I have difficulty identifying with her as I am able to do on at least some level in the other stories of Ms. Stewart. And the main male character is deeply flawed, perhaps even a sociopath, without the ability to feel real affection for others. It is hard to read about them, and especially to listen to them, for so long. Furthermore, this narrator is not the best. The main character has lived in the US and Canada, so no longer has an English accent, but I find the American accent a bit off putting. There have been different narrators for each of the previous books I’ve listened to so far, and all have done very well to excellent. With each, first person is used for the female protagonists, and it seemed as if I were drawn in to listen to the character tell her story. For this audio, I was very aware of listening to a narrator present a book. I think this audiobook was less enjoyable for me due to both the premise of the plot and the narration. Others may appreciate them better than I, however.

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