"A Glitter of Gold" by Liz Johnson

A Glitter of Gold (Aug. 6, 2019) by Liz Johnson.*

Hurricane Lorenzo certainly didn’t help Anne Norris’ (Anne Bonny, professionally) Rum Runners Tours guided tour business, which has already been struggling. Finding work is not easy when you’re a convicted felon, even when the judge believes that she took the fall over something she had no knowledge of, yet she spent five years and seven months in jail. She fled California to Savannah, Georgia, and Tybee Island to be free. Anne finds a sword hilt made of gold, and she takes her find to Dr. Carter Hale at the National Maritime Museum. He’s astounded by it, thinking it proves a shipwreck described in an 18^th-century family diary passed down through the generations. To date, he’s never been able to pinpoint where the Catherine may have sunk.

            Carter is attracted to Anne the first time he sees her, when she enters the museum before hours, having gotten in when Hazel, the museum’s only other paid employee, forgets to lock the front door. Locating the shipwreck is his life’s passion thanks to that diary he first read all those years ago. Somehow, almost impossibly, he convinces Anne to work with him. Her only request (demand, really) is that he never give out her name, though she doesn’t disclose why. She knows she should tell him, even Carter’s Aunt Tessie has figured out her past. (Granted, she’s a research librarian, “It’s what I do.”) After hurricane damage, Carter doesn’t have the money for the repairs, and the museum was already hemorrhaging money prior to that, and Anne doesn’t know if she’ll have two dollars next week. Will the search to find the shipwreck be a boon to their respective lives or a titanic sinking of their budding relationship?

            While this is the second in the Georgia Coast Romance series, this read as a standalone novel, which I appreciated, having not read the first one. “A Glitter of Gold” shows two main characters working to find acceptance of themselves through God’s grace. Anne has been bogged down these years past with the weight of perceived guilt and the burden of shame, while Carter has avoided “the Hale name” when he may have to suck up his own pride and reach out to his father. My favorite part of the story was reading excerpts from the diary; I found the high-seas adventures to be captivating. Johnson’s story has a strong constitution to hold up her swiftly-moving, inspirational, contemporary romance. It is part treasure hunt and part exploration-of-self. I didn’t love it, but I did like it. It has verve.

* Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Revell Books. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions are expressly my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”