SOURCE: Review of The Stormy Petrel, in Kirkus Reviews, Vol. LIX, No. 14, July 15, 1991, p. 887.

In the following review, the critic praises Stewart's ability to evocatively portray the setting of her novel The Stormy Petrel.

By the English author of Thornyhold (1988), etc., more atmospheric romance, but here in a slight, mere wisp of a novel [The Stormy Petrel] set in Scotland's Western Islands. The scenery, however, is grand.

Rose Fenemore is a tutor of English at one of the Cambridge colleges; she also writes poetry and now needs an "ivory tower" retreat. Brother Crispin promises to join her for a holiday on the Scottish island of Moila but is delayed. Alone in her cottage, Rose is at first terrified, then angry and puzzled, by the night arrivals—separately—of two men. Both are strangers to her. Ewen Mackay, who lets himself in with a key, claims that the cottage...