What Exactly is the Gilded Age?

Introducing a new collection of gilded age stories…but when exactly is that?

Pretty much everyone knows what the phrase "rags to riches" means, but ask someone when the gilded age was and you'll most likely be met with a deer-in-the-headlights look. So let's just clear up that bit of confusion right here and now, shall we?

Originally the term came from an 1837 novel written by Mark Twain titled The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today. It was a satire of an era with serious social problems that were masked by a thin gold gilding. But the "for real" gilded age period is during the late 19th century, roughly 1870-1900. It was a period of great economic growth, when money was flowing relatively freely, hence the moniker. 

But that didn't mean there weren't poor people, too. In fact, there was quite a discrepancy between the haves and the have-nots. 

And that's what my latest story is all about. Releasing today is the Of Rags and Riches Romance Collection: Nine Stories of Poverty and Opulence During the Gilded Age. 

Here's a blurb for my story, A House of Secrets:

Ladies Aide Chairman, Amanda Carston, resolves to clean up St. Paul’s ramshackle housing, determining to renovate the worst of the worst: a “haunted” house, but when she enlists the aide of her fiance, city attorney Joseph Blake, they uncover secrets neither expects—which may mean the end of their relationship . . . or their lives.

What secrets are those? Pop on over to Amazon and snatch yourself up a copy. It's a pretty fat book with 9 stories in all, perfect for your summer reading.