Today’s quiz has been created by Susan Daly, writer and regular Mary Queen of Plots correspondent. Susan has set out to test us on our knowledge of first lines in Mary Stewart books and I had a great deal of fun selecting answers to the questions, which are all multiple choice – how highly will you score?
Here is the quiz:
And you can explore Susan’s fab website here.
A huge thank you to Susan!
Mary Queen of Plots 
Yay! My copy of The Moon-Spinners, which I ordered over a month ago, has just landed in my mailbox. Lovely condition, with jacket. First ed. And a little yellowed news clipping taped inside: Picture with caption “Mary Stewart, top-selling novelist, in Birmingham yesterday — ten books with 25 million sales.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
What a lovely added bonus, Susan! I take it that the clipping was from around 1967-70? 25 million sales sounds phenomenal, it would be fascinating to know how many books Mary Stewart has sold to date.
LikeLike
70%
The ones I knew, I knew, and I could pretty much continue the paragraph from memory.
The ones I guessed at were all wrong.
Thank you to Susan and Allison for bringing back some great memories.
(And it was no surprise to me that Wind off the Small Isles and Thunder on the Right were two of the three that I missed. Neither comes high on my list of Mary Stewart Re-reads.)
LikeLike
That is a pretty solid result, Jerri, well done! Susan has created a great quiz here.
LikeLike
What a great idea for a quiz – reading over the first lines had me trying to decide which of her books to read next (I just re-read The Gabriel Hounds).
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Laura, it’s lovely to hear from you and I agree, Susan has created the perfect Mary Stewart quiz! I’d be interested to hear how you got on with The Gabriel Hounds, and what you decided to read next.
LikeLike
Interesting: I got two right for books I haven’t read yet and two wrong for books I had! 8 out of 10. Thanks for posting, it was fun.
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is a great result, Lucina, I’m glad you enjoyed Susan’s quiz.
LikeLike
Thanks, everyone, for jumping into the First Line Quiz. It looks like a lot of Faithful Readers really know your first lines.
The line & book with the overall highest score was Nice Coaches Waiting (“I was thankful that nobody was there to meet me at the airport”) with 91% getting it; the lowest, with 59%, was The Ivy Tree (“I might have been alone in a painted landscape.”)
I’ve got another quiz in mind, but I’ll have to do a fair bit of reading before I can set it up.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Late July Audible in the US has just released unabridged audiobook versions of This Rough Magic and Wildfire at Midnight. I hope they do the rest of the romantic suspense soon, since the audiocassette versions have been “out of print” for years.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hi Jerri, sorry I have never been in touch but I am – finally – picking up all my comments and questions on here. Audible UK seems to have all of Mary Stewart’s Merlin and suspense books, so I hope it is now the same in the US.
LikeLike
I hope you go back to doing the quizzes! They were very fun! Now that I have reread several MS books and the last couple of years I might do better on the quizzes!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am planning to!
LikeLike