The Test of Gold by Renee Yancy

The Test of Gold

Hearts of Gold, Book 1

 Renee Yancy

Publication Date: 15 March 2021

Publisher: Vinspire Publishing

Page Length: 335 pages

Genre: Historical Romance

(Blurb) 

Raised in the shadow of a mother who defied convention, but won’t allow her own daughter the right to make the same choices, heiress Evangeline Lindenmayer has been groomed since childhood to marry into the British aristocracy. 

When Lindy challenges her mother’s long-laid plans by falling in love with a poor seminary student, the explosion is bigger than the Brooklyn Bridge fireworks on Independence Day.

                        

An excerpt from The Test of Gold

May 1897 

Jack glanced at the empty dining chair across the table. For the last fortnight, his mother hadn’t been strong enough to come downstairs for supper and grew steadily weaker. The windows of the dining room were open to the spring air, and the fresh scent of newly-turned flower beds drifted through. Children played on the street outside as the days grew longer. But in this room with his uncle, silence lay heavy like a tomb. Only the clink of silverware against the china gave any evidence of life.

Jack’s thoughts went to the library in the Lindenmayer mansion, where earlier this afternoon, Miss Lindenmayer had shared some details of her life with him. Funny, he’d never thought about what life might be like for the high society young women in the church. That they would marry a man of their parent’s choosing. But what about love? His parents had married for love. And then his father had died young, leaving his mother in a precarious position with no means of support. If it weren’t for his uncle... 

“Have you no conversation this evening?” His uncle glowered at him, his lower lip thrust out in a most unpleasant way. His surliness had increased in direct proportion to his mother’s worsening condition.

Startled, Jack tore his thoughts back to the present. “I’m sorry, Uncle.”

“What are you thinking about?” Do I dare answer honestly? He laid his fork down. “My parents actually. Their marriage.”

His uncle’s face screwed up into a frown. “A mistake from the start.”

Jack blinked, not expecting such a blatant statement of disapproval. “Pardon me, sir? A mistake?”

“They were never suited.” His uncle chomped viciously on a piece of beef, swallowed it, and speared another piece. “Never should have been allowed.

 “Never should have been allowed?” Jack choked out.

“Stop repeating everything I say. You heard me.”

“My mother would never say that. She loved him. And he her.”

His uncle glared at him. “She was too young to see how shallow he was. My brother swept her away with his smooth charm and pretty words. And then what does he do? Goes out and gets himself killed.”

“He could hardly have planned that,” cried Jack, fury rising in him.

“Stop shouting.” His uncle helped himself to another serving of beef. “It’s fortunate for you and your mother I took you in.”

Jack swallowed hard. Calm down. Don’t rise to the bait. His uncle would never have voiced these thoughts if Mother had been at the table. Until now, he’d never realized how much of a buffer she’d always been between them. And as her illness worsened, the crotchetier his uncle became.

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Author Bio

Renee Yancy is a history and archaeology nut who writes the kind of historical fiction she loves to read – stories filled with historical detail that immerse you in another place and time. When she isn't writing historical fiction or traveling to see the places her characters have lived, she can be found in the wilds of Kentucky with her husband and two rescue mutts named Ellie and Charlie. 

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