International Kindle Paperwhite
Kindle Unlimited
Unlimited reading. Over 5 million titles. Learn more
Read for Free
OR
EUR 8.48 with 45 percent savings
Print List Price: EUR 15.28
You will be charged USD 9.99

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Sold by HarperCollins Publishers. Price set by seller.
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy as Gift

Buy as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

How it works

  1. Choose your delivery method
  2. Send now or schedule for later
  3. Add your personal message
  4. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.

Added to

Sorry, there was a problem.

There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. Please try again.

Sorry, there was a problem.

List unavailable.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

  • The Rose and the Yew Tree: A Cautionary Historical Novel of Social Climbing by Agatha Christie, Written Under the Pseudonym Mary Westmacott—Perfect for Summer Reading

Follow the authors

Get new release updates & improved recommendations
Mary Westmacott
Follow
Agatha Christie
Follow
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Rose and the Yew Tree: A Cautionary Historical Novel of Social Climbing by Agatha Christie, Written Under the Pseudonym Mary Westmacott—Perfect for Summer Reading Kindle Edition

by Agatha Christie (Author), Mary Westmacott (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.1 out of 5 stars (795)

A cautionary tale of social climbing by Agatha Christie, written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott.

Agatha Christie, famous for her ingenious crime novels, also wrote about crimes of the heart.Written under the pseudonym Mary Westmacott, Christie’s tales of romantic suspense further explore the human psychology she was so intrigued by, freed from the expectations of her mystery fans.

The Rose and the Yew Tree tells the story of Isabella Charteris, a beautiful, sheltered aristocrat who everyone expected to marry her cousin Rupert when he came back from the War. It would have been such a suitable marriage. How strange then that John Gabriel, an ambitious and ruthless war hero, should appear in her life. For Isabella, the price of love would mean abandoning her dreams of home and happiness forever. For Gabriel, it would destroy his chance of a career and all his ambitions…

A favorite of both Agatha Christie and her daughter Rosalind, this story examines the darker side of class divisions and the price of ambition.

Read more
Previous slide of product details
  1. Print length
    273 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    William Morrow Paperbacks
  4. Accessibility
    Learn more
  5. Publication date
    May 20, 2025
  6. File size
    6.3 MB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
Next slide of product details

Customers also bought or read

Page 1 of 1Start over
Previous page
  10. Book cover Deadly Duo: Two Novellas, Kindle Unlimited
    Deadly Duo: Two Novellas
    Kindle Edition
    EUR2.54
  16. Book cover The Allingham Casebook, Kindle Unlimited
    The Allingham Casebook
    Kindle Edition
    EUR7.63
  18. Book cover Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life
    Agatha Christie: A Mysterious Life
    Kindle Edition
    EUR2.54
  21. Book cover Uncle Dynamite, Kindle Unlimited
    Uncle Dynamite
    Kindle Edition
    EUR8.48
  24. Book cover Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman
    Agatha Christie: An Elusive Woman
    Kindle Edition
    EUR14.42
  27. Book cover The Part-Time Job
    The Part-Time Job
    Kindle Edition
    EUR0.84
Next page
Loading...

From the Publisher

Read More
An Unfinished Portrait
Absent in the Spring
Giant's Bread
A Daughter's a Daughter
The Burden
Buying Options
Buying Options
Buying Options
Buying Options
Buying Options
Customer Reviews
4.4 out of 5 stars 602
4.4 out of 5 stars 1,246
4.3 out of 5 stars 508
4.2 out of 5 stars 453
4.1 out of 5 stars 327
Price EUR 11.03 EUR 8.48 EUR 11.03 EUR 8.48 EUR 8.48

Editorial Reviews

Review

Select Guide Rating --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Dame Agatha Christie (1890-1976) was a British crime writer best known for her detective novels and short stories. According to Guinness World Records, she is the bestselling novelist of all time, her novels having sold over two billion copies and having been translated into more than one hundred languages. The Agatha Award for best mystery and crime writers was named in her honor. --This text refers to the mp3_cd edition.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0DNTFSLH3
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ William Morrow Paperbacks
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ May 20, 2025
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 6.3 MB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 273 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0063452886
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Best Sellers Rank: #93,431 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 out of 5 stars (795)

About the authors

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
Previous page
  1. Mary Westmacott

    Mary Westmacott

    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read book recommendations and more.

    See more on the author's page
  2. Agatha Christie

    Agatha Christie

    Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
    Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

    Born in Torquay in 1890, Agatha Christie began writing during the First World War and wrote over 100 novels, plays and short story collections. She was still writing to great acclaim until her death, and her books have now sold over a billion copies in English and another billion in over 100 foreign languages. Yet Agatha Christie was always a very private person, and though Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple became household names, the Queen of Crime was a complete enigma to all but her closest friends.

    See more on the author's page
Next page

Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
795 global ratings
Bait and switch
1 out of 5 stars
Bait and switch
The inside of the book is a different book from the cover. It appears to be a historical novel about Egyptian times, instead of the romance that I was expecting. Unfortunately, I didn’t try to read the book until after window for returns.
Hide
Thank you for your feedback
Sorry, there was an error
Sorry we couldn't load the review

Top reviews from the United States

  • Roberta De Jong- Elem Library
    5.0 out of 5 stars Book was in great shape!
    Reviewed in the United States on August 27, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Book like new
    Helpful
     Report
  • Kevin Killian
    4.0 out of 5 stars Of Equal Duration
    Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2008
    You don't find out until the very end what the meaning of the title is, but it comes from a quotation by T S Eliot, ":The moment of the rose, and the moment of the yew tree, are of equal duration." That's from "Little Gidding" (1942), the last of Eliot's Four Quartets, thus it was very much a contemporary poem for Christie, who published this novel under her pseudonym Mary Westmacott in 1947. The whole novel is filled with impossible time schemes, for the main events take place at the very end of World War II, in the summer of 1945 when the Labour party mounted a landslide victory against the Conservative party dominated by Churchill, and Christie's fictional protagonist John Gabriel is put forward by the local Tories of Cornwall even though he isn't very much of a gentleman, in order to appeal to a changing political climate. Then another patch of the story happens in the autumn of 1947, when the narrator Hugh Norreys encounters two of the Cornish characters in a faraway Balkan city ("Zagrade"). In other words, this must have been around the time that Christie was actually writing the novel. And yet as we experience the frame story surrounding these events, we experience is as happening at a much, much later date than this 1947 date. At least I would think it would be at least a decade if not two or three for John Gabriel, Christie's doomed politician, to transmute himself into "Father Clement," the romantic, saintly Mother Teresa of the apocalyptic Cold War period Christie imagines is going to happen.

    For much of the book, as others have noted, THE ROSE AND THE YEW TREE is a novel about disability; our hero has been involved in a terrible traffic accident and he is rendered almost wholly immobile. The tiny town of St. Loo becomes his window on the world, the nobility, the middle classes, the poor folk of the harbor like puppets in a Vanity Fair carnival for him. In despair, he fastens on the lives of anyone who comes to visit him, and yet for all his obsessions with their lives, he often fails to see their inner natures. He completely misses the fact that Teresa, his brother's Penelope Cruz-like wife, is steadfastly in love with him, while he fails to register the torrid three-way split between regal and distant Isabella Charteris, her fiancé (now stationed in Burma) Rupert, Lord St. Loo, and the common mongrel Gabriel.

    In the background of Gabriel's campaign we see the exact same events that formed the "back story" of Christie's contemporaneous play The Mousetrap (first written as a half hour radio play to celebrate Queen Mary's 80th birthday, May 1947). Evacuee children brought out from the London blitz and boarded on West England farms, but abused and starved by cruel farmers and their wives, are a feature in both THE ROSE AND THE YEW TREE and THREE BLIND MICE. Did Christie make up this account of abuse, or did she base her fictions on a newspaper or radio account of something in the news at the time? Where are the grad students who could research this mystery?

    Then there's the pun on "yew" and "Hugh" ....
    8 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Kindle Reader
    5.0 out of 5 stars Rose & Yew Tree
    Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2023
    Verified Purchase
    Really enjoyed Agatha Christie's story which departed from the mystery genre but included rich character development. The characters are very intriguing and offer a twist in the portrayal of human nature. Parts of it might be slow-paced to some. The ending surprised me, then shocked me, and then left me in a sad contemplation. It did offer hope for the main character- Hugh. It's a story that I won't forget.
    4 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • RCM
    3.0 out of 5 stars A Different Cup of Tea
    Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2012
    "The Rose and the Yew Tree" is one of six novels Agatha Christie wrote under the pen name of Mary Westmacott. None are mysteries, more affairs of the heart, a "novel or romance and suspense" as it's billed. It is a unique experience reading such a famed novelist from an entirely different perspective, and while the story moves briskly, I'm not too sure there is much to the story at hand.

    The tale is narrated by Hugh Norreys, a man who was cripples and paralyzed in an automobile accident on the day he was set to run away with the woman he loved. At the beginning of the novel he is called to the sick bed of a man who was never quite his friend, John Gabriel. Hugh's reencounter with Gabriel after so many years sets in motion the telling of how the two men first met and parted as enemies. After his release Hugh resided with his artist brother, Robert, and sister-in-law Teresa, in St. Loo, a small Cornish town on the verge of a Parlimentary election. Gabriel was the candidate put forth and Hugh, the perfect listener whether he wanted to be or not, found himself privy to the secrets and gossip of the town. He is inexplicably drawn, as is Gabriel, to the young Isabella, certain heir to St. Loo Castle who is awaiting the return of her knight in shinning armor. Both men act very differently towards her yet neither truly understands why she makes the decision that she does in the end.

    Agatha Christie was a very talented writer proven by the fact that her works have stood the test of time. Originally published in 1947, "The Rose and the Yew Tree" makes use of some very contemporary elements, and while dated in our time, the emotions that drive these characters remain universal. I'm not sure whether I really liked "The Rose and the Yew Tree" but I know I did not dislike it. A lot of the novel was dialogue and narration with little indication as to any driving purpose - this can be frustrating especially when several characters are not likeable or even compellingly drawn.
    7 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Anne Gilman
    5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing!
    Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2026
    Format: Kindle
    Brilliant plots, characters, insights.
    Agatha Christie, writing as Mary Westmacott, always surprises. Genius.
    Her characterizations are indelible. Recommend for anyone who wants an unforgettable story.
    One person found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Pazzi
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2018
    Verified Purchase
    Love Agatha!
    2 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Katherine Brown
    1.0 out of 5 stars Bait and switch
    Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    The inside of the book is a different book from the cover. It appears to be a historical novel about Egyptian times, instead of the romance that I was expecting. Unfortunately, I didn’t try to read the book until after window for returns.
    Customer image
    Katherine Brown
    1.0 out of 5 stars
    Bait and switch

    Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2024
    The inside of the book is a different book from the cover. It appears to be a historical novel about Egyptian times, instead of the romance that I was expecting. Unfortunately, I didn’t try to read the book until after window for returns.
    Images in this review
    Customer image Customer image
    One person found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report
  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    great read
    3 people found this helpful
    Helpful
     Report

Top reviews from other countries

Translate all reviews to English
  • DeVeGe
    5.0 out of 5 stars Nice to read something "else" from Agatha Christie alias Westmacott
    Reviewed in Belgium on December 24, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Nice to read something "else" from Agatha Christie alias Westmacott
    Report
  • SK
    5.0 out of 5 stars statt Krimi
    Reviewed in Germany on February 11, 2026
    Verified Purchase
    Agatha Christie mal ganz anders
    Report
  • M. P. Poulain
    5.0 out of 5 stars Human souls
    Reviewed in France on July 27, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    A profound book about what makes us different, the torture of false perceptions and the redemption by learning to follow your best instincts. Uncanny portraits and thoughts by this great writer, this great person, Agatha Christie.
    Report
  • Parag Nandi
    5.0 out of 5 stars Must read
    Reviewed in India on June 22, 2025
    Verified Purchase
    Very good book by Agatha Christie.
    Report
  • Rita W.
    5.0 out of 5 stars easy reading
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 3, 2024
    Verified Purchase
    great story. love this new side to Agatha Christie
    Report
See more reviews

Report an issue


Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report