The House on Hay Hill

by Dorothy Eden

romanic friction

Genres: Gothic

224 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 1976

About the author

Aka Mary Paradise.

Dorothy Eden was born in 1912 in New Zealand and died in 1982. She moved to England in 1954 after taking a trip around the world and falling in love with the country. She was best known for her many mystery and romance books as well as short stories that were published in periodicals. As a novelist, Dorothy Eden was renowned for her ability to create fear and suspense. This earned her many devoted readers throughout her lifetime.

Reviews

[Diane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Normally, I really like Dorothy Eden's books, but this particular one was something of a disappointment. This is actually a collection of short stories, only one of which could conceivably be called a mystery. The rest are mostly romance. The eight stories were published in Good Housekeeping and Women's Journal between 1959 and 1974. The stories are:

"The House on Hay Hill" - The only mystery, albeit a very lightweight one, about a young woman who inherits her aunt's home and finds someone is impersonating her. There's no real sense of mystery or suspense about this one. It would have done better as a novel.

"The Lady and the Tycoon" - A widow buys a home for herself and her son, only to have a millionaire try to buy it from her almost immediately. This story didn't make a lot of sense to me, especially the reason for the millionaire wanting to buy the house. I also did not like the boy, Peter, who came across as selfish.

"Fly by Night" - This is a strange tale about a young woman who meets a young criminal, desperate for food and really just someone to talk to. This one fell flat to me because I can't imagine why Christine would want to stay with such a controlling boyfriend:

"He did not like her to wear a certain fashion, so she stopped doing so. He was not happy about her going to what he called that 'squalid hulk' on the Tames to paint, so naturally she did not go. He wanted to read such and such a book, meet this friend or that, and certainly to stop looking paint-splashed and forgetful of her appearance as she had been when they first met. All this, indeed, he had accomplished."

I'm sorry, but that's an abusive relationship. Christine is supposed to have changed by the end of the story, but she certainly didn't act like it.

"Summer's Love Affair" - A young woman sets her sights ostensibly on a millionaire, but it looks more like she's interested in his home, Stonehall. A little different from the other romance stories due to its ending.

"The Hopeful Traveller" - A young woman is convinced by her two widowed aunts to go on a cruise and a trip to London.

"Love in the Wilderness" - A young woman inherits a very small legacy and decides to set out on her own for the first time in her life. A really sweet, enjoyable story with an unconventional hero and heroine.

"The Mirage" - The title refers to an antique shop, "Flora's Shop," in Curacao. For some reason the owners keep the business closed most of the time while potential customers peer through the windows and knock on the door to no avail. Of course, this is used as a setting for a romance. It's cute, but rather slight. Also, it makes no sense why the shop owners delay in opening the shop. You wonder how they stay in business.

"Happy After Ever" - A story about second chances. I really liked this one. Valerie is talked into having a "coming out" party for her grown daughter, Anna, who is scornful about the very idea.

This is definitely a mixed bag of stories. It's good if you're interested in romance, but it's not really mystery related.

[A.J. · Rating 2 out of 5]

8 stories
360 pages

My Review (spoiler alert!)—This book, it turns out, is eight stories in one (the copyright page says that it’s a collection of stories that first appeared in “Good Housekeeping” and “Woman's Journal”), all under the first story’s title, "The House on Hay Hill."

I gave it two stars because, all in all, the book holds “okay” stories, pretty evenly divided between good and bad.

“The House on Hay Hill,” pages 1-82
Okay, so this is the first story. Setting: London, England. Don’t know the time, but it’s probably late 1950s because that’s the first copyright date given.
Emily Armitage (heroine), American, has just inherited her British aunt’s (Lady Emilia Lloyd) estate, including one house on Hay Hill, London. She also inherits a mystery. Why is there a light on at her uninhabited house in the middle of the night? Why, when she called to check, did someone with her voice answer claiming to be “Emily Armitage speaking”? Why do both of her (disinherited) cousins seem to be courting her with such gusto when either should have no trouble in the “girl” department? Who’s the girl for whom she keeps being mistaken? Why do things keep going missing from her new inheritance? And where did the antique store go, which had in its window one of the Hay Hill treasures that, when she called the owner’s attention to it, suddenly disappeared, treasure, shop, and all?
These are the questions Emily runs into in her first week (or so) of moving into her new, and what was supposed to be uneventful, London life.
It’s a good story, but, because short, the ending feels too rushed, hurried, and even a bit contrived, as if, knowing she had to wrap the story up, she tried to stuff what should’ve been a couple more chapters (at least) of wrap-up into a time-constrained box of “end it now.”
But if you go into the story knowing it doesn’t span the entire book but only 72 pages (so the story will end sooner than it appears (because, by the time you come to the “unveil,” you still have 141 pages left in the book and so aren’t looking for a finale quite yet)), you should like the story very well and not be surprised at its forced (hurried) conclusion.
Grade: B+

“The Lady and the Tycoon,” pages 83-102
This is the second short story. I suppose, if one were to classify this story, he would say it was a Romance because Dorothy Eden obviously meant for it to be a romance, though I can’t claim to be of the same opinion. Having just finished it, my first thoughts are: “Oh, please. I’d tell the guy to go jump in the Thames!”
Summary—Eileen Fairley, widow, one son (Peter), finally manages to leave cramped London and move into the country, getting her dream house: a quaint country cottage, a slight fixer-upper, something she can grow into and decorate as the time goes by—and her son can have room to grow free from apartment living. Enter Gordon Heseltine, the “tycoon” in the story’s title. He, too, desires the house but was late getting to the auction. So Mrs. Fairley beats him to it. Is he deterred? No. He manages, with her Benedict Arnold son’s help, to get her to give it up and move back to London. (This guy gives the successful businessman his bad name!)
Is Mr. Heseltine satisfied? No. He decides the best part of the house was the woman from whom he suckered it and sets his next business mission: “woo” her. But he learns she’s engaged. Does that stop him? No. He gets ride of Mr. Fiancé. And when even that doesn’t work, he, without permission, begins “wooing” the son, taking him to lunch in his sports car. But this fails to work, too, so he “gives in,” handing the house back to her.
Which, of course, does the trick! She caves and asks the blighter over for tea—“the house now seems to lack your presence” (or something near it), she says.
Ugh. Spare me. The guy couldn’t, in real life, attract a paperclip with an industrial-strength magnet—no way he’d “win” her over in the end (unless she’s a complete loser, and then they deserve each other!).
Grade: F (pass!)

“Fly by Night,” pages 103-118
This is the third short story. I would classify this as Suspense and Romance because the beginning opens with a touch of suspense and keeps a fair amount of “tension” for several pages, and “romance” because the heroine learns a lesson on love and ends with a “happily-ever-after” glow on that love.
My first thoughts upon finishing? Eh. It was okay.
Summary—Christine’s about to get married to upwardly-mobile Mark, though she’s debating that because she finds him too possessive and demanding and herself too willing to yield. So she escapes to her boat to think and paint, the boat Mark told her to give up and the pastime he dislikes because it leaves her covered in paint (you get the feeling that he dislikes it not so much to control her but because his yuppie friends may look down on his “independent Bohemian-esque” girl). Then comes Robert. Young and hungry and on the lamb for stealing. He holds her up on her boat for a meal but is served a lesson on trust for dessert. Funny thing is, Christine’s lesson affects her, too, and she comes away realizing that she loves Mark, who’s not really so bad (he, too, after deducing from what her Houdini act stemmed, realizes his errors, that she needs her outlets and hobbies that give her a chance to be “Christine” and unwind, let off steam, enjoy herself), and is quite ready to marry him.
Grade: B

“Summer’s Love Affair,” pages 119-142
This is the fourth story. My verdict: asi asi. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t really good either.
Summary—Serena Pennington has her hopes set on becoming mistress to Stonehall, her family’s ancestral home that’s now in the hands of Jonas Todd, newspaper tycoon. Her family lost their wealth and home; Jonas, farm boy-cum-“self-made” millionaire, now owns it. So she propositions him! She’ll turn the ramshackle abode into the original splendor known to her ancestor’s; he pays the bills. Her ultimate goal? To marry him, of course. Not for love or his money. For Stonehall. To return the Penningtons back to its halls, permanently. By the end of the story, they both get more than they’d bargained for: the chance to make a summer’s love affair with a house grow into a lifetime one between each other.
Again, it was okay. Could’ve used more to the story, but, being a short one from a magazine, of course, there wouldn’t be the room. All in all, an okay read.
Grade: B

“The Hopeful Traveler,” pages 143-162
This is the fifth short story.
No. I didn’t like it. It was so silly. Two aunts, one just coming into a windfall, take their niece on a cruise to help find her a man. But she doesn’t find one on the boat—she finds one in London…on a bus! And she becomes obsessed with him as any good first-crush schoolgirl (of 26!) may! But the ride comes to an end and she doesn’t know his name—only that he’s a violinist at the Albert. A week or so goes by, and she hasn’t run into him. She gets discouraged—and then they bump into each other again. A misunderstanding separates them. But she knows he’s to play first string in Glasgow, so the story ends with the aunts professing this time she’ll get her man.
Silly. For all she knows (for all any of them knows), she could be chasing the modern-day Jack the Ripper!
Grade: D

“Love in the Wilderness,” pages 163-192
Number six.
Now this is a love story. Very sweet. It’s about two ugly ducklings accidentally finding each other in London: Lavinia, a homely spinster, and Cornelius, a curmudgeonly millionaire. A friendship develops between them over the course of a year, which is spent mostly in unexpected meetings around the city. And then an illness causes Lavinia to confess her love, and Cornelius “sends her packing.” But love drives him back to her little basement apartment where they first met, and it’s where he finally realizes what’s the basis of her love for him. And it ends with love being found in a wilderness called London.
Very touching, endearing, and feel-good. Should’ve been a much long story.
Grade: A+

“Mirage,” pages 193-206
Number seven.
Didn’t like it. Didn’t get it. Oh, I got Anthony and Diana’s blossoming love story (though it was silly enough), but I didn’t at all get Mina, Flora, or the very last line. It was just a strange story that shouldn’t’ve come after such a good one (“Love in a Wilderness”) in any book.
Summary—This time it’s a Caribbean setting (Curaçao). Anthony and Diana are at a port stop, shopping separately before their boat leaves for England. She’s seen him on the boat and liked what she’s seen; he, naturally shy, keeps to himself and doesn’t socialize. At an antiques store, she’s thrust into his awareness because the store’s not open. It never does open because Mina, the black native islander, doesn’t seem to enjoy being open (she only works for the actual owner). Anthony seems to have a fantasy woman, and he thinks this shop is the sort of place she’d have, so he desires to meet the proprietress. Diana desires the antique gilt mirror she thinks will show the reflection of a beautiful girl who’ll attract Anthony, instead of the “plain” girl of whom he’s taken no notice. Anyhow, because Mina never opens, Anthony’s forced to the realization that DIANA'S his fantasy girl, and they leave together, happy and in the first stages of love.
Hearing voices below, Flora, the proprietress, yells at Mina, who says she’s about to open, and then Flora appears: old and bent. And then Mina laughs at her and says of her reflection: “Dat ain’t you anymore.”
Weird.
Grade: F

“Happy Ever After,” pages 207-224
This is the eighth and final short story in the book.
Nope. Didn’t like it either. How does a girl not tell her own mother (to whom she’s very close) even so much as the NAME of the boy she’s going to marry? I didn’t like Anna (the daughter), even though she did want to pair her mother up with an old acquaintance (Tim Brady) who was the best man at her wedding 20 years ago and whose crush on her (Valerie, the mother) began that day and continued on for the last two decades. It’s all well and good to see your mother happy before you set off on your own life’s adventure (marriage), but never to bring the man home to meet your family, never even to tell your mother about him—not even his name? Never to introduce them: “Mom, this is John Carruthers, my fiancé,” at the party to which you all attend? It just seems so secretive, so uncivil, so juvenile (is Anna really mature enough even to contemplate marriage?), so disrespectful to your family and especially to the man you claim to love. You should want to shout it from the rooftops that you love him and are to be his—not keep him a secret (as if you’re ashamed of him)!
The only person I liked in this story was Tim, and there was too little of him, much too much of Anna.
Grade: D (I’ll pass!)

[Nattie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book fooled me. I thought it was one story but instead it's one longer story and seven shorter. The House on Hay Hill was the best and it had about 83 pages. The rest ranged between 30 and 16 pages; I didn't read most of them because they didn't sound suspenseful and I don't care for very short stories

The House on Hay Hill is about an American girl named Emily Armitage who inherited a house in London from her wealthy great-aunt who recently died. Emily decided to live in the house instead of putting it on the market. The house was filled to the brim with antiques that Emily intended to list for auction, but first she had to solve the mystery of the girl who could pass for her twin and seemed to be watching the house around the time valuables started going missing, and who exactly was it that answered the phone by the name of Emily Armitage when Emily called the house from the hotel on her first night in London?

I really liked the story, but it ended so abruptly, had I known it was going to be short, I wouldn't have been so annoyed.

[Carrie Dalby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of short stories by master storyteller Dorothy Eden. The title one is Gothic Suspense/Romance, the others not Gothic, just light romance by nothing overly sentimental or gooey--just charming, mid-century British stories with interesting characters.