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    The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall
    Unavailable
    The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall
    Unavailable
    The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall

    Written by Paul Torday

    Narrated by Richard Mitchley

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Ed Hartlepool has been living in self-imposed exile for five years, but with a settlement regarding his inheritance looming, he must return to his ancestral seat, Hartlepool Hall. On his return, he discovers that his father has left him, along with the house, a seven million pound tax bill, two massive overdrafts, an 80-year-old butler, and a vast country estate that is creaking at the seams. Not only that, but there is a strange woman in residence - Lady Alice - who seems to have made herself very much at home.

    With the debts mounting, it seems that Ed's only recourse is to turn to his friend Annabel's new boyfriend, a property developer who plans to turn Hartlepool Hall into luxury flats and a golf course. But can Ed save his inheritance without such a drastic move? And is Lady Alice really the person she claims to be?

    Read by Richard Mitchley

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette UK Audio
    Release dateJan 5, 2012
    ISBN9781409142072
    Unavailable
    The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall

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    Reviews for The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall

    3.5/5

    28 ratings7 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall tells the story of Ed Hartlepool and his (stately) home. When his father died and left the vast estate to Ed five years ago, Ed retreated to France to bury his head in the sand and avoid facing the massive tax bill and all the other problems associated with owning such an estate in modern times. When he has to come back he realises the scale of the mess he is in.I really enjoyed this book. My only other experience of Paul Torday was Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, which I didn't enjoy at all, but this book was easy to read, humerous and a pleasure all round. I think the author has a light-hearted style which is a little quirky and whimsical. In a way I find myself wondering why I liked this book so much as the story doesn't go anywhere and there isn't that much depth to the characterisations, but I just found it to be a book that I looked forward to reading, and what more can you ask for?
    • 4/5
      An enchanting and unusual novel. At the simplest level this is a tale about Ed, Lord Hartlepool, who is summoned back from his tax exile in the south of France to cope with a series of crises after the Trustees of the various family settlements that have hitherto supported his affluent lifestyle are forced to agree a crippling settlement with H M Revenue and Customs. As is so often the case with Torday's novels, the principal protagonist here has been a peripheral character in various other novels. In those previous appearances there seemed very little that was likeable about Ed Hartlepool. However, the portrayal of him here as he faces up to the prospect of genuine and permanent ruin leaves one surprisingly sympathetic Meanwhile, in a deftly intertwined subplot, Ed's lifelong friend Annabel Gazebee is struggling to escape a life of abject misery, looking after her aged, domineering and utterly graceless father. She senses the possibility of escape when she is courted by Geoff Tarset, a wealthy property developer who has his own eyes of Ed's family home, Hartlepool Hall.Torday is as masterful as ever in manipulating plot twists and developing his characters, and as a consequence delivers another very enjoyable novel.
    • 4/5
      I have always enjoyed Paul Torday's books, and it is sad that there will be no more. On the whole he writes about a class of people I know, or care, little about, but he makes the characters come alive and so, you begin to care. In this book the "heroes" [if they are such" are distressed gentlefolk and the villains, the nouveau-riche, the banks, lawyers etc. It is a sad story of the final fall of a "great" house [albeit one only two hundred years old. I have never been sure why he has picked on Hartlepool as a name for the house or the family, it has nothing to do with my ancestral paternal home. But it is, as ever an engaging, and this time, a moving read.
    • 5/5
      At first this had all the appearances of a classic piece of chicklit, but written by a man, and with rather a different focus. Ed does not come over at first as a very sympathetic character, but, as he loses everything, he finds himself, whereas Annabel, for whom one anticipates a happy outcome, as she gains her freedom is totally undone. A most enjoyable, and unexpected, book which kept me reading from start to finish with scarcely a break.
    • 2/5
      After reading Paul Torbay's "Salmon fishing in Jemen" I went on to read "The irresistible inheritance of Wilberforce". A dark book about a guy who started to get interested in wine and ends being an alcoholic. Hartlepool Hall and its family played a role in this book as well. I was quite looking forward to another dark deep novel but was bitterly disappointed. "The Legacy of Hartlepool Hall" is a book for a persons bed side table who is into romantic novels set in the rich aristocratic English landscape.

      I find it quite interesting to see how an author can change from slightly boring but interesting story line (Salmon Fishing in Jemen) to quite fascinating deep and dark (Irresistible Inheritance) to romantic teenager novel.

      Shall I read more from him?
    • 3/5
      An easy read which I mostly enjoyed but I did feel the end petered out a bit.
    • 5/5
      I found this took quite a long time to get going, but by the half-way point I was completely drawn in, and by the end completely satisfied. A darker comedy than some of Torday's earlier books, but many of his trademark characteristics remain, not least a lost male in the form of central character Ed, Lord Hartlepool.At it's simplest this is a tale of how one minor English lord is unable to maintain the landed estate passed down to him by his more entrepreneurial ancestors. It could, however, be taken to represent an allegory for the English nation as a whole: a country seeking to maintain a place of prominence in the world but no longer able to generate the resources this requires. Lest it sound as though I am being a bit harsh on my country, there is a sense that Ed is not entirely responsible for his fate, partly being a victim of circumstance: the same might apply to the nation.