I came away from this with the unfortunate reaction that, just as was the case with Boyd’s novella Slay Bells, sometimes when you find the unpublished writings of a relative in your attic, you need to, y’know, leave it in the attic. We tend to overvalue the talents of our loved ones and I mostly think that’s a good thing, but it isn’t when that results in the publication of stuff that probably should have stayed in the proverbial drawer.

Boyd always picks a solid premise to start from and that’s as true here as in her Christmas novella, but the solve is equally roughly done and the dialogue needs a lot of work.

What a fabulous story! I was hooked from start to finish, and to be honest, I didn't want the story to end.

Almost every angle is explored in the book - jealousy, evil, love, betrayal, manipulation and abuse. As much as I loved the main character Lark Williams, there's one another character who's also a favorite. Julia. She's the embodiment of pure evil. Her role in the story is impressive, and I suppose I would say I liked Julia's portrayal better than Lark's.

Don't get me wrong, Lark is a sweetheart. She's been through a lot and staying with Julia in the Dune House is nothing less of a horror show. She's also betrayed and manipulated. But, as the story proceeds, she starts to discover things she wants in her life - love, especially.

I loved the ending. It was a tad sad, especially for Lark. But, on the brighter side (no matter how hurtful it seemed), Lark was saved from something nasty.

If you are looking for a unique, interesting, and marvelously written story, I highly recommend you give Dune House by Eunice Mays Boyd with Elizabeth Reed Aden a try.

I often struggle with mysteries set in the US but this was actually quite good. Had a bit of a filmic quality to it, you could just imagine it as a Hitchcock film. Enjoyable.

Dripping with atmosphere, evocative Dune House is a Golden Age mystery written between 1948 and 1950, set in San Francisco in post-WWII. Interestingly, the author's goddaughter discovered the manuscript for this book, previously unpublished. What a treasure!

Lark Williams works at an office job alongside her husband, Aubry, to whom she is secretly married. She responds to an advertisement by the indomitable recluse Julia Paget who seeks her trustee to inherit millions. Armed with the requisite photograph as proof, Lark goes to the sprawling Paget house surrounded by sand dunes. Each nook and cranny holds a secret. The portieres swoosh and the staff members clearly have something to hide, including the story of a drowning. Music at night is disconcerting. Rules must be obeyed. Eccentric doesn't even begin to describe Julia who ensures her house and grounds are beyond secure. What happens next is a string of events which grows stranger and stranger and the story grows more and more claustrophobic until the very end when mysterious happenings are explained.

Golden Age mystery lovers, this is well worth reading. Not only is it a splendid mystery jam packed with plenty of red herrings but it is also about the powerful hold one (and/or money!) can have over others. Sure, there are imperfections in this novel but I became utterly lost in it and enjoyed it for what it was.

My sincere thank you to Level Best Books and NetGalley for the privilege of reading this wonderfully imaginative book.

It is a Golden Age mystery and it must be considered as a Golden Age that is a whudunit with a cast of characters full of secrets.
The language must be considered as those of nearly a century ago.
That said I enjoyed and think this is a good mystery and this new to me author did a good job.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this arc, all opinions are mine

I thought for sure this book would be my cuppa tea as it's exactly the type of book I like most, cozy crime, a whodunnit, a mystery in an isolated mansion, but what is it trying to be? Agatha Christie meets an American Version of Du Maurier's Rebecca? Unfortunately the writing is fairly amateur and it ends up reading like a thriller for the Hallmark channel.
Pity, there's a great plot in there somewhere.

This storyline had so much potential but sadly I found the writing quite chaotic and rushed. I think this book would benefit from another proof read as I found a few grammatical mistakes and this made it difficult to read and hard to understand what the author was trying to say sometimes. In parts of the book I really felt the danger and isolation of Dune House but in other parts things just didn’t seem to make sense. I worked out the twist of the story quite early on and I think it was made pretty obvious to the reader. I like the setting of Dune House and the spooky things happening both inside and outside the house. I also really enjoyed the touch of romance but found that more could of been added to it. I had high hopes for this book but sadly it just feel a bit flat. The story was very interesting it just wasn’t executed well.
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Thank you to @NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

DNF - I usually don’t mind this style of story or the way the scenes are approached (I.E. old timey mysteries) but I couldn’t engage with this one. I found Lark to be at once a character of her own mind & then she teetered on ridiculous in her almost willingness to be a ditz. The beginning of the story was fast moving so I did enjoy that but overall not something I was vibing with

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher.
What a great classic mystery. I enjoyed it and will have to look into some of the other books that have now been released by this authors family. I understand there are several written in the 40’s and 50’s they were never published till now. Looking forward to reading those next!
Great mystery.

A Classic Mystery…
A sprawling mansion house hides a multitude of secrets In this mystery in traditional vein and such a treat for aficionados of the Golden Age of crime. With a wonderfully crafted cast of characters, a well plotted storyline and a perfect setting comes a solid, classic whodunnit with twists aplenty. It seems that the author’s goddaughter discovered this then unpublished manuscript, and what a good job she did. Just perfect.

Dune House is set in post-WWII San Francisco and follows Lark Williams who discovers that she may be the heiress to the reclusive Julia Paget. Upon arriving at the mysterious Dune House to present her proof, Julia Paget refuses to let her leave. This begins the mystery of who actually is the Paget heir, but there are also a few other mysteries tossed into the mix.
When I began this book, I was expecting it to be extremely atmospheric. I was sorely disappointed. This was more of a cozy mystery, though I’m not sure if I could actually tell you what the primary mystery was. There were just so many things going on and then it was all resolved in a rush. This book simply contained too many threads that were all rather forcefully tied together in the end and it just didn’t work for me.

In post WWII San Francisco, Dune House is an anachronism from the 1880s, as is the owner the very rich Julia Paget. Now she decides it time to find the daughter or grandchildren of her disherited brother Ulysses. Lark Williams believes she is the granddaughter and comes to stay at the house, never able to leave. But what mysteries does the house and its occupants hide.
A combination of a murder mystery with a herioine in possible trouble coupled with manipulation by Miss Paget, makes for an interesting and entertaining read.
An ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
(Probably written between 1948 and 1950)

“Ahead, between them and the ocean, sand blew like fog off a long bare dune. From every open patch of sand that dappled the beach grass and lupin, the fine mist rose. As the team pulled west, an arc of sun coming out of the clouds gave all the lower air a silvery cast, and the great towered house rising out of the luminous dust had the look of a mirage.
“Now I see why they call it Dune House,” Lark murmured. “It seems to belong to the sand instead of the cliff or ocean”.”

‘Dune House’ was written between 1940-1950 by Eunice Mays Boyd (1901-1971) who published three mystery novels during her lifetime; “Murder Breaks Trail” (1943) Doom in the Midnight Sun (1944) and Murder Wears Mukliks (1945), featuring her amateur detective F. Millard Smyth.

After her death in 1971 her unpublished manuscripts were bequeathed to her goddaughter Elizabeth Reed Aden, including a fourth book ‘One Paw was Red’ featuring her detective F. Millard Smyth, as well as a Christmas mystery; ‘Slay Bells’ and ‘Dune House’. These remained stored at Ms Aden’s mother’s house until their re-discovery in 2016.

Both ‘Slay Bells’ and ‘Dune House’ have now been published and the original published novels, currently out of print, are due to be re-published in 2023 by Level Best Books.

In the afterward the author’s goddaughter writes that ‘Dune House’ “is set in the Sunset District of San Francisco” However in the adjacent Richmond neighbourhood there still exists ‘Cliff House’ an ill-fated tourist destination that has twice burnt to the ground and been re-built. The third Cliff house looks far too modern but the second building, destroyed in 1907 is like the descriptions of the fictional ‘Dune House’. In the novels Boyd isolates the house further inside a mile of sand dunes on one side and the cliffs over the sea on the other.

Boyd’s Dune house is not an hotel but the private home of a reclusive millionairess Julia Paget. “fenced off from the public by ocean and wire in a mile-long rectangle of dunes that the roads had to skirt, the house stood alone on a cliff, facing waves of sand instead of water.… a large house spiked with towers like unlighted fireworks”.

The story begins when Lark Williams, a stenographer in a lawyer’s office, sees in a newspaper a photo of herself as a baby under the title “ARE YOU THE MISSING HEIR?”. Encouraged by her employer to come forward and claim kinship, Lark journeys to the inaccessible and remote Dune House. There she meets Miss Paget and while the veracity her claim is being confirmed agrees to stay at the house and goes along with all Miss Paget’s eccentricities. Soon however, Julia’s behaviour becomes more and more controlling and erratic; the other family members are hostile to an interloper who will oust them from their inheritance and Lark wants to leave. But by then it is too late as she realises that the “fence wasn’t built to keep folks out. It was built to keep them in”. Will Lark manage to escape? Is she really the Paget heir due to inherit a fortune? Who among the staff and family members can she trust?

I loved the setting and 1940s atmosphere this novel. The mystery held my interest with enough twists and red herrings to be satisfying. The ending is a bit too rushed, which I put down to its unfinished state before publication. It is refreshing to read a golden age mystery set in San Francisco by an American author. The usual in Golden age crime fiction is very much an English country setting, but this novel is an American period piece with all the vernacular of 1940’s speech, marabou dressing gowns and cable cars. It has a twisty mystery plot in the style of Patricia Wentworth. I would recommend it to fans of Golden age mysteries.

N.B.
There is a mistake at 92% of the ebook. “You can reach your own decision without argument. And I’m sure it will be worthy a Paget” should read “You can reach your own decision without argument. And I’m sure it will be worthy of a Paget”

Disclaimer: I requested and was granted a free download of the ebook of ‘Dune House’ from Net Galley.

After the death of her godmother, Eunice Mays Boyd, Elizabeth Reed Aden found four unpublished novels which have now been edited for publication. "Dune House' was written between 1948 and 1950 and is set in post-WW2 San Francisco. Although it involves murder, deception, past secrets and inheritance, its major theme is the power and influence that an individual can hold over others through wealth and personality.

At the centre of it all is the titular house, a fossilised relic of the 1880s, presided over by the autocratic and unloved Miss Julia Paget. Dune House is as magnificent in its awfulness as its chatelaine and it plays a big part in the events which unfold.

Miss Paget decides to search for a missing heir who will inherit a huge trust fund, and in pursuit of this, Lark Williams, secretly married to a lawyer who works in the firm which deals with the Paget's legal affairs, arrives, and is forced to live, at Dune House.

The novel is an interesting amalgam of the heroine-in-peril, and murder-mystery genres, with spooky goings-on, psychological manipulation and family secrets added in. It is mostly well written, and while one has to suspend belief a little, the plot is no worse for that. It does sag a bit in the middle, and would benefit from a little pruning. I did not find it difficult to work out most of the solution and the ending is a bit sudden after the leisurely pace of the bulk of the book. as well as overly melodramatic. The heroine is just a bit too naive for her own good, However, I will certainly read more of this author's work.

3.5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Level Best Books for the digital review copy.