House
on the Hill, by Annette Lyon
Reviewed by Jennie
Hansen
Annette
Lyon steps out of her usual contemporary mode to write a story
of the heart that takes the reader back more than a hundred years.
The setting of House on the Hill is the late 1870s, when the Logan
temple was under construction. Lyon’s own love for the Cache
Valley and Logan Temple shine through her story, making it one
of those hard-to-put-down novels.
Lizzy,
torn by emotions and questions concerning the reality and fairness
of God, is left at the family farm to care for an ill younger
brother while her parents and other family members attend a funeral
some distance away. She loves David and wants only the best for
him, but in her eagerness to provide service to her beloved brother,
she sets the house on fire. She escapes the burning house and
manages to rescue her brother, but the fire has two serious consequences.
Her family cannot afford to rebuild and must move away. In addition,
the chronically ill younger brother suffers continued complications
from exposure.
The
family that offers Lizzy’s family shelter initially is the family
of her dearest friend, Joshua. Joshua and Lizzy have been friends
since early childhood. As they’ve grown older, Joshua’s feelings
for Lizzy have grown romantic, but Lizzy continues to see Joshua
as her old, familiar playmate. He’s too familiar for her romantic
nature to picture as a suitor. Joshua is patient, and he understands
Lizzy better than she understands herself. He’s willing to wait
for her and is sympathetic to her impulsive, romantic nature.
As
Lyon focuses on character development, the reader gains a picture
of Lizzy as a young woman who has a good heart, but who is a little
dreamy and immature. She loves to read and fantasizes over the
romantic heroes in her books. Her parents are both busy and practical,
never suspecting their daughter’s frustration with the mundane
or her questioning of spiritual matters. Joshua wants to please
Lizzy and though they are good friends who enjoy long discussions,
he keeps her in the dark concerning his love for her. His hard-working,
plodding personality have him laboring long hours to reclaim her
family’s farm as a wedding gift for her, though he fails to mention
his feelings to her and she has no idea he is courting her. Even
when he takes her for long sleigh rides back to the old farm and
asks her opinion on furnishings for the new house he is building,
she still fails to see him as a beau.
Lizzy’s
days are filled with hard work and little privacy as the family
is forced to live with another family in Logan (where her father
has found work as a mason on the Logan temple). With her shaky
testimony, the tedious labor that fills her days, and the acute
pain of having lost her books in the fire, Lizzy is not happy
until she meets a young man, Abe, who shares her love for literature
and offers to share his books with her. He is handsome, romantic,
and shares many of her own doubts concerning the gospel. They
meet secretly because her parents, especially her mother, disapprove
of him.
Lizzy’s
mother cannot see beyond the color of Abe’s skin — nor can she
understand how her daughter can fail to have a testimony of the
Gospel as firm as her own. Additional pressure is placed on Lizzy
and her relationships with her parents, siblings, and the two
young men who love her through a number of disasters with far-reaching
consequences.
Abe’s
life hasn’t been pleasant. As a child who was abandoned by his
Indian mother, he has been raised by a man who only values him
for the work he can get out of him and a mother who is so brow-beaten
she doesn’t dare stand up to her husband. Thrown out of their
home at an early age, Abe obtains work on the temple, then hires
on with a quarry crew where he and Joshua become good friends
without either young man realizing that their girls back home
are really just one girl — Lizzy. Abe is an honorable young man,
who is reaching for something better than his past. He lovingly
cares for his horses. He is tender with his foster mother and
tries hard to overcome Lizzy’s mother’s prejudice. His feelings
for Lizzy run deep.
I
would have liked to see Lizzy confront her role in the fire at
the beginning of the book better. It also seemed to me that her
choices at the end of the book were based more on impulse and
guilt than is healthy.
The
triangle relationship holds the reader’s interest, is well-written,
and believable, but some readers will be disappointed in the outcome
if they are expecting the usual romance. Though the story involves
romance, the book is more reality-based than formula romance.
I found the best part of the book to be the details of the construction
of the Logan Temple and the everyday life of those first- and
second-generation members of the Church. There are a number of
scenes that excellently portray both Lizzy’s gradual maturing
and her spiritual growth, but paralleling her growth is the growth
of a temple of God, complete with sacrifices, mistakes, and the
beauty of the completed edifice. Just as there are parts of Lizzy
that are known only to her and pondered in her secret heart, there
are a few mysteries tucked inside the temple walls. Lyon has
written a couple of contemporary romances in the past that are
among the best of that genre, but her foray into historical fiction
has created a memorable novel that will captivate far more readers
than just those who enjoy romance.
