The Gilded Years

We had agreed to spend the New Year with our own families, but at the last minute, my husband, Drake Murrell, changed his mind and insisted I go back with him this year. I agreed, planning to take this opportunity to finally tell him the truth about who I really was. When we first got married, my parents told me to keep a low profile so that Drake, who came from a single-parent household, wouldn’t feel pressured. So I hid the fact that I was the daughter of the richest family in the capital, the Thorntons. When we returned to his hometown, I specifically bought my mother-in-law, Diana Murrell, a pair of gold bangles. She accepted them with a beaming smile, praising me again and again for being such a thoughtful daughter-in-law. However, the next day, as I passed by the old oak tree at the edge of Willow Creek, I overheard her talking about me with a group of people. "Oh, you have no idea. My daughter-in-law is absolutely ridiculous!" My hand froze midair, still holding my phone, as I instinctively ducked behind a haystack. I heard her continue loudly, "She bought me a pair of gold bangles this year. The moment I touched them, I knew they were fake! I’m telling you, they’re probably those cheap online knockoffs, like the kind that cost next to nothing and start fading the moment you wear them!" I was stunned with anger. She called pure gold fake? Looks like the million-dollar New Year gift I had prepared for her wasn’t necessary anymore.

At The Gilded Academy, Ivy St. Claire was a ghost. To her husband, Julian Vane, she was a mistake, a "charity case" scholarship student he was forced to marry. For three years, she endured his coldness and his public affairs, waiting for the day her "trial" would end. On graduation night, Julian hands her divorce papers in front of the entire school to propose to his mistress. He expected her to cry. Instead, she laughed. When the "poor scholarship girl" returns as the CEO of the world’s largest diamond conglomerate, Julian’s world crumbles. He realizes too late that he didn't just divorce a nobody; he divorced the only woman who could save his empire. Now, he’s on his knees, but Ivy isn't looking down. She’s already moved on.

The Weight of Gold is a trilogy about what happens after the meet-cute — not the falling, but the building. It follows Eleanor across seven years as she trades inherited splendor for a chosen life: a small house, a workshop full of sawdust and linseed oil, a diner owner who becomes her true north, and a town that becomes her home. But it is also the story of the people pulled into the orbit of a life genuinely lived. A cousin who arrives hollowed-out by the wrong marriage and finds her footing in native plants and honest argument. A mother who mistakes the form of a life for the life itself, and slowly, carefully, begins to dismantle that mistake. A sculptor who needs wood that speaks. A town that goes better for being attended to. At its heart, this is a story about craft — the craft of furniture, of restoration, of building institutions and relationships and selves. About the difference between the shape a life is supposed to take and the shape it wants to take. About a word Daniel uses for bleached wood: ghost — not white, not absent, but elsewhere, waiting for the right conditions to return. Eleanor spends seven years learning that ghost is not an ending. It is the beginning of something better.

A signed contract. A $22 million debt. A beautiful prison built of gold, secrets, and raw obsession.** When Vivian Montgomery’s father plunders his own empire and vanishes, he leaves his daughter to face the executioner. Enter Dominic Vance—Manhattan’s most ruthless venture capitalist, known in the corporate world as "The Executioner." He doesn’t want a payment plan. He wants liquidation. And the only asset left to seize is Vivian herself. Backed into a corner with her family's legacy on the verge of being erased, Vivian is forced to sign a devastating, high-stakes contract. For twelve months, she must play the part of Dominic’s adoring, devoted fiancée to secure a multi-billion-dollar corporate merger. In public, she wears his flawless diamonds and smiles for the paparazzi. But behind closed doors, the rules change. Behind closed doors, she belongs to him completely. As Vivian is pulled into Dominic’s dark, suffocating world, the friction between a forced arrangement and a dangerous, addictive passion begins to boil over. Dominic is fiercely, violently possessive—destroying anyone who dares to look at her, driven by a dark obsession that runs far deeper than a mere business transaction. But a luxury cage is still a cage. Just as the high-friction 18+ heat between them reaches a breathless breaking point, a cryptic note delivered at a high-society gala shatters the illusion: *Your father didn't run. Dominic Vance is lying to you.* Trapped between a burning desire for the man who owns her and a terrifying secret tied to a hidden file in his private safe, Vivian must decide how far she will go to uncover the truth—and whether she can survive the absolute surrender of unlocking the golden cage.

In a world of wealth, power, and family feuds, Shay Falcon fights to break free from the shadows of her billionaire dynasty. The youngest daughter of the renowned Falcon Group's CEO, her life is a blend of neglect, sibling rivalry, and the suffocating pressure to conform. But beneath her fragile facade, Shay craves independence and forges a secret path as a secretary at the illustrious C&E Holdings, a company owned by her family's bitter rivals. Just when Shay believes she has found solace in her hidden sanctuary, fate intervenes, thrusting her into a tumultuous whirlwind. The enigmatic Jason Cartwright and the charismatic Chase Evans, the powerful bosses of C&E Holdings, uncover Shay's clandestine identity. Their shocking discovery sets in motion a chain of events that will shatter the fragile facade of her life. In the heart of the cutthroat corporate battlefield, where power is a weapon and loyalty a luxury, Shay Falcon's life becomes a gripping tale of survival and redemption. Can she transcend her tainted lineage and reshape her destiny, or will the weight of her family's legacy consume her? Prepare to be captivated by a story where ambition collides with fate, and the untamed spirit of a young woman defies all odds.

Catherine Smith was born into untouchable wealth, a girl with everything except the freedom to love by choice and not demand. When she falls for Elijah Blakes, the quiet, kind man who works at the repair shop, she thinks she’s found the one thing money can’t afford: real love. But Elijah is hiding a secret. He’s not poor. He’s not powerless. He’s the estranged heir of a rival empire— and he’s been pretending to be someone else to keep her close. When her powerful parents discover their forbidden relationship, they break them off mercilessly. Catherine is forced to marry into a loveless engagement. Elijah, heartbroken, disappears and marries someone else. Years later, fate brings them back together. He’s colder now. Married. Untouchable. But the fire between them never died. And now, with everything to lose and nothing left to hide, the only question left is: Will she risk everything again for a man who lied to win her heart or—will love truly the only thing they can’t afford?