Wonderful collection of entertaining and good stories. Interesting characters. All the stories are good and this book is worth reading!

I am a huge fan of these books. It gives me the chance to read stories from new authors. Love, Love Love

Everyone, from all walks of life, is caught up in gold fever during the California gold rush. The anthology richly captures a slice of life during this tumultuous and exciting time in American history.
Nine authors come together to give a unique perspective on the robust era of the gold rush.
Amanda Barratt pens the story of Lorena Quinn, in The Price of Love. Lorena is a struggling new reporter who jumps at the chance to cover the gold rush and to prove her boss wrong. Women don’t need men to take care of them, even if the woman is unbecoming with unfashionably red hair.
The Best Man in Brookside by Angela Bell focuses on Donovan, an Irish immigrant to England. However, Donovan had to flee England after being falsely accused of theft. He feels himself a failure for having to leave his little sister and wants to vindicate himself. So, he seeks his fortune in gold in America, hoping to free himself and his sister.
Civilizing Clementine by Dianne Christner, introduces us to Clementine Cahill, forced to return to San Francisco with her Chilean friends after her father is injured in a logging accident. Motherless Clementine begins to feel betrayed when her invalid father badgers her to clean up her grammar and start wearing dresses.
Ann Green’s story, The Marriage Broker and the Mortician, opens with the robbery of Eve Malloy, while she was at a boarding house. Rafe Riley, happening upon the scene 15 minutes later, offers to assist her and takes her to dinner when none of the multitudes of men at the boarding house seem to care.
Jo Bass is made known to us in The Lye Water Bride by Linda Farmer Harris. Jo and her brother Thaddeus run the local bank. However, Thaddeus falls ill, leaving Jo with the chore of caring for day-to-day operations.
Cynthia Hickey writes the story of Rose McIroy in A Sketch of Gold. Poor Rose is forced to cut her hair to hide her muliebrity. She can’t believe her father's latest get rich quick scheme involves trying to pass her off as a male and call her boy all the time.
Pam Hillman’s tale, Love is a Puzzle, presents the story of Shanyn Duvall and her aunt who traveled from the tip of South America to Sacramento in the hopes of seeing Shanyn’s father. They learn he has passed away, and during this time, Sacramento is not a friendly town for two single women.
The Golden Cross by Jennifer Rogers Spinola centers on Ming and her uncle, who travel from China to California. Ming feels God called her to be a missionary to America, and her uncle is hoping they can find riches in the gold-rich state.
Golden Haven Heiress, by Jamie Jo Wright, is about Jack Taylor and Thalia Simmons, residents of a ghost town. Thalia, trying to escape her past, moved to Golden Haven to be left alone, then Jack shows up and disrupts her peaceful life.
The stories in the Gold Rush Collection differs in their seriousness of Biblical applications. However, each author does a fitting job of presenting Christian principles.
I thoroughly delighted in each story and each author’s interpretation of the gold rush time frame. I also enjoyed the ability to read as many or as few stories as I wanted in one sitting.
I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you love American history, you gotta love the California Gold Rush! The 1800s had many tales worth telling, but as a reader, I often find them so similar it is hard to distinguish the difference. If you're looking for an array of women's romance stories from that era, you can't go wrong with this collection of nine, all steeped in the Christian faith.

The first story is from Amanda Barratt, called The Price of Love. A young woman who is a writer accepts a bet from her employer that she can't go to California, write stories about what's happening with the gold rush, and not fall in love. There are so many men and so few women, that her boss is sure she will find a man to marry. When she balks at the challenge, he offers her a promotion if she wins. But she doesn't count on a handsome writer meeting her at the dock upon her arrival.

Next is a story from Angela Bell titled The Best Man in Brookside. This story has two main characters, a man and a woman. Although the story starts out with Donovan Gallagher panning for gold, he doesn't stay there long. He soon has his pockets full, so he heads home to reclaim his little sister and also to confront Sophia Heyer, the woman who fired him for stealing from her estate. Now that he is a rich man, life will be different.

Dianne Christner is the next author with her story, Civilizing Clementine. Clementine Cahill is an interesting character! She is a real "backwoodsy" type of gal who is uneducated and often dirty, uncouth, and pretty rough. Her father decides to fix that and hires two women to turn Clementine into a fine lady. There are lots of comedic moments, but it's not a story that stuck with me too long.

The Marriage Broker and the Mortician is by author Anne Greene. The "marriage broker" is Eve Molloy, who has taken it upon herself to find husbands for the 18-yr-old girls who are no longer welcome at the orphanage home due to their age. She loads them up and hauls them off to Eureka, California to find husbands for them. That's when Eve meets the mortician, (two interesting professions for the 1850s) and although he finds her charming and adorable, she is not so sure about him. This story had several turns that just seemed to be dropped in for no apparent reason, but still, it was entertaining.

Linda Farmer Harris wrote The Lye Water Bride, which featured Jo Bass, a banker in Dry Diggins, California. Thad is Jo's brother, although most people in town think they are husband and wife, not brother and sister. They are co-partners in the banking business and they give value to the gold nuggets that the prospector's want cashed in. But when Jo hires a man to help her at the bank, things start happening that makes her and other folks suspect he might not be on the up-and-up.

A Sketch of Gold by Cynthia Hickey is a wonderful story about nineteen-year-old, Rose, whose father talks her into dressing and acting like a boy while they pan for gold, so that untrustworthy men will leave her alone. Soon, they meet an artist who came west to sketch. Before long they find out he is also a minister. He suspects Rose is a girl, not a boy as she appears, but how in the world do you ask someone that? This story ranks near the top of my favorite stories in this collection.

Next in line is Pam Hillman's story, Love is a Puzzle. This is not just a romance, it is also a light mystery with an interesting subject! Shanyn Duvall leaves her home and heads west in search of her missing father. He is a surveyor mapping the Sierra Nevada mountain region and she hasn't seen or heard from him for over two years. Last she heard, her father was looking for a new place for them to call home. When Shanyn hears that her father is dead, but can't get more details, she starts investigating. I would have liked to have heard more about her father, because not only was he a mapmaker, but he made puzzles and was also an artist. This was an interesting story and was one of my favorites.

The Golden Cross by Jennifer Rogers Spinola is not the usual Gold Rush story. Although beautifully written, this story is heavily laden with religious overtones, almost to the point of overshadowing the story itself. Ming and her uncle are from the Canton Province of China. Just like all the other Forty-Niners, they wanted a better life and they thought San Francisco was on a mountain of gold and that all the pebbles were gold nuggets. But after arriving in San Francisco, they find the real world is very different from the one they imagined. Soon, they open a Chinese and/or Cantonese restaurant, which simply comes to life through this writer's hands. This is a story worth reading.

Last, is Gold Haven Heiress by Jamie Jo Wright—Although she's no ghost, Thalia Simmons has taken up residence in a ghost town! Thalia is a "soiled dove," scarred and shamed. But she has escaped that life, only to find a new man knocking on her ghost town door. The abandoned town of Gold Haven has more to offer than Thalia ever imagined. Wonderful story!

Loved all the stories in this book!! What an amazing collection! AMD each was different enough to capture my attention withoiy feeling like I was reading the same story over and over again