Aunque Mary Westmacott -lease Agatha Christie- no pudo escapar a su sello criminal ensangrentando el título de su novela, esta vez nada tiene que ver con los actos siniestros de un secreto asesino o los envenenamientos de una dama truculenta. La rosa de sangre es la historia de una relación. Pero Agatha Christie -lease Mary Westmacott- no abandona la estructura del suspense; la reina del crimen sabe complicar las situaciones, y cuanodo se supone que la espectativa lleve a un matrimonio formal de Isabella Charteris con su primo que está en la guerra. Aparece otro oficial, John Gabriel, para componer el entresijado hilo conductivo de una historia cuyo final, naturalmente, no puede ser supuesto. Agatha Christie maneja estructuras narrativas complejas y sabe sacar partido al estudio sicológico del personaje John Gabriel, aprovechando sus conexiones para dar una visión del conservadurismo inglés, de un modo sencillamente genial.

La rosa de sangre (en inglés: The Rose and the Yew Tree)? es una novela escrita por Agatha Christie, bajo el seudónimo Mary Westmacott en 1948. Fue la cuarta de seis novelas escritas por Christie bajo este seudónimo.Trama: La muerte de John Gabriel -el justo, el santo- hizo despertarse a un pasado confinado entre la melancolía y la tristeza: los tiempos en que Gabriel -oportunista con vitola de héroe de guerra- apareció en St. Loo, para perturbar una sociedad conformista y plácida y arrastrar tras de sí y su destino de desarraigado a Isabella Charteris; dos vidas atrapadas en el error o la malicia, pero a la que el inagotable sentimiento del amor hizo, por un momento, sublime.

Agatha Christie writing as Mary Westmacott - but using a setting she also uses in one of the Poirot books. This is a funny mixture: character study and small town politics, framed with Ruritanian melodrama. I found it amusing, aggravating and moving in pretty much equal measure.

According to Agatha Christie's daughter, Rosalind Hicks, "The Rose and the Yew Tree" was a favorite of Agatha Christie and also of her daughter. A beautiful woman, Isabella Charteris, has always envisioned that she will marry the man of her childhood dreams - her cousin - and Rupert, the handsome man is to marry the beautiful young girl - his cousin - that he met in childhood and always envisioned marrying when he returns "home" from the war. The story is the tell of all the circumstances leading up to the reveal if the handsome man returns "home" and the life the woman has come to live. Their story is told by Hugh Norreys, a neighbor, a man who has his own story to tell. There are many unexpected twists and turns and as always the reader becomes entranced by the writing.

Don't miss reading more about the novels by Christie's daughter, Rosalind Hicks...
https://www.agathachristie.com/about-christie/family-memories/the-mary-westmacot...

I am looking forward to reading the next romance titled, "A Daughter's a Daughter." ( )

Nothing too big and heavy for listening in the car, trying to get back into that after a period off. Radio 4 on the way to work, book in the evening seems to be working at the moment. A road trip finished the last hour or so of this off.
This is a tale of the past. A man is summoned to a death bed in Paris by someone he would not call a friend. This person wants to tell him the woman they were both linked to died. You don't get to hear this until the end, as after that introduction, you get to hear the back story. The story teller is Hugh Norries, a captain who was injured in a car crash in the war, on the harrow road. He is still trying to find his reason to live when he is transported to Cornwall by his brother and sister in law, Teresa. Teresa is one of life's organisers, and she set about being involved. in this case in politics - despite not really having an interest in politics. So Hugh ends up being used as a sounding board by people involved in the local election (the labour landslide on 45) on the side of the conservative candidate. He's a war hero, but no gentleman, who is attractive to women and attracted to danger and publicity - probably in equal amounts. Here they both meet Isabella, the young girl who live in the castle. She's aloof, self contained and opens up to no-one, although both of the men fall under her spell. Only one understands her and the other doesn't. This is primarily the cause of the antipathy between them. It is a sad tale, with in one sense a sad ending. In one case, he does not know what he had until it was gone, in the other, a least, he can remember the prime, not the ending.
the title comes from Teresa, who says that a rose and a yew tree do not live for the same length of time, but each lives for the same purpose and dies when that purpose is fulfilled. In that sense a short life lived to the full is not the same as a life cut short. ( )