House of the Twelve Caesars — Phyllis Hastings

A Trembling on the Hill

The lonely mansion atop the Hill of the Stranger in Wales seemed forbidding to Dorothy Etting from the day she arrived. She had come from America to seek the grandfather she had never seen -- only to find, in this house of her ancestors, mystery and confusion. The spirits of Roman emperors breathed ominously about her -- or was she only imagining them? Why did no birds sing on the Hill, and what had her forbears done that people should spit at the sound of their name? Everywhere were questions without answers -- troubling questions only, until Dorothy realized she was a prisoner in the house, fighting for her life in a nightmare atmosphere in which not even the man she loved could be trusted.