9 h 26 minAudiobook11 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What can love change in a neighbourhood where money is short, but a good heart still counts?
In A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill, Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice brings warmth and gentle humour to a Southern world of ordinary neighbours. Hardship sits beside affection, and people matter more than their addresses. This is a romance built around the possibility that love can change not just a relationship, but a person.
Rice looks at a poor but spirited community with a kindly eye. Her comic touch makes room for life's hard parts without letting them fill every corner. The appeal lies in that balance: sweetness alongside struggle, kindness alongside need, and the hope that character can grow even when circumstances remain difficult.
What you’ll discover
- A neighbourhood with spirit Enter a Southern setting where short purses do not define a person's worth.
- Love beyond courtship Explore a romance that treats love as a force for personal change.
- Humour beside hardship Find a gentle comic touch that leaves room for the weight of poverty.
- Kindness at the centre Spend time with fiction that values a good heart over a good address.
- Another age to consider Read with a thoughtful eye for the period's attitudes to class, gender, and race.
Who will love it
Readers who enjoy old Kentucky settings, tender romance, and funny, quarrelsome neighbors will feel at home here. It also suits anyone who likes a story where kindness reaches from a grand house to a poor alley.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A spring afternoon at Thornwood
- A close call and a ragged boy
- A stormy night at the saloon
- Silence, a promise, and a loss
- A new marriage on College Street
- The hill, the alley, and the people between
- A Christmas ball and a returning exile
- Ruin, work, and the cost of honor
- What the story is about and how it is told
Who’s who
- Miss Lady CarseyA high-spirited, kind-hearted Kentucky girl who grows up wild at Thornwood and wants to be useful and to love honestly.
- Don MorleyA charming, restless young man from the city who wants a home of his own and tries to become someone worth trusting.
- Colonel Bob CarseyMiss Lady's doting, old-fashioned father, who loves fishing, mint juleps, and his daughter, and distrusts her city suitor.
- Doctor John Jay QueeringtonA learned, gentle professor devoted to his great history, who offers Miss Lady a safe marriage and a sheltered life.
- Myrtella FlathersA stern, hardworking cook who bullies everyone, saves for her own boardinghouse, and secretly loves a ragged boy.
- Chick FlathersA small, thin, nearly speechless boy from Bean Alley who worships Miss Lady and wants to be a bold desperado.
- Phineas FlathersMyrtella's talkative, red-haired brother, who lives on charity and church sympathy and avoids honest work.
- Noah WickerA tall, awkward farm boy turned young lawyer, loyal to his friends and hopeful about Connie Queerington.
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- Large-print eBook
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- Audiobook
- 9 h 26 min, complete, read by Lucas Linden.
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas in about 11 minutes, to read or to hear.
- Paperback
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Hardcover
- 6 × 9 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print paperback
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
- Large print hardcover
- 8.5 × 11 in. Printing soon: leave your email under Paperback or Hardcover above.
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Une romance de la Colline du Bouc
by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice · 1912
Miss Lady, a Kentucky horsewoman with no mother, rides out with Don Morley, and one stormy night shatters her world.
Medium level5–10 hours to read25 languages
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In short
A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill is a novel by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice, who also wrote Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch and died in 1942.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A spring afternoon at Thornwood
The story opens on a Sunday in a Kentucky spring. Colonel Bob Carsey, stout and weather-beaten, sits on the porch of Thornwood waiting for a mint julep. His old servant Jimpson is slow with the ice, and the Colonel grumbles as he does every week. The old house has seen better days, but it still wears a broad, contented smile on its front porch.
Miss Lady comes out in her riding habit and a small red hat. She has been raised by her father alone, and she has never agreed to take a proper name. Everyone has called her Miss Lady since she was a baby. She talks the Colonel out of his objections with a laugh, a tug at his ears, and the simple argument that fishing on Sunday is no better than riding.
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What is A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill about?
It follows Miss Lady Carsey, a lively Kentucky girl, her love for Don Morley, a shooting at a saloon, and the choices that follow. It is set around Thornwood, an old mansion, and the poor alleys below it.
Who is Miss Lady in the book?
Miss Lady is the nickname of the daughter of Colonel Bob Carsey. She grew up without a mother and never took a formal name. She loves horses, books, and people, and is kind to everyone she meets.
Where is Billy-Goat Hill and what is Thornwood?
Billy-Goat Hill is a long hill beside a river near a Kentucky city. Thornwood is the old family mansion on it, once owned by the Carseys, with shabby charm and a wide front porch.
The author
Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
1870–1942 · American novelist
Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice was an American novelist born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, in 1870. She lived in Louisville, Kentucky, and died there in 1942. She wrote Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, published in 1901, Mr. Opp, published in 1909, and A Romance of Billy-Goat Hill, published in 1912.
More by Alice Caldwell Hegan Rice
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