Renee Yancy's Blog: Author Renee Yancy

 

The Test of Gold by Renee Yancy

At long last, my first traditionally-published Gilded Age romance novel, The Test of Gold, releases today. First in the Hearts of Gold series, book one tells the tale of plucky Evangeline Lindenmayer. Here’s the Amazon 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 (Lindy) Lindenmayer has been groomed since childhood to marry into the British aristocracy. When...

The Earl’s Lady Geologist is a new Regency romance releasing today, written by my author friend, Alissa Baxter.

I haven’t read many Regency romances aside from classics such as Pride and Prejudice, Emma, and Sense and Sensibility.

So I eagerly dug into this new story and found it quite engaging.

Here is the back cover copy for The Earl’s Lady Geologist:

Cassandra Linfield is a lady fossil collector who declares she will never marry as no man will ever take her studies seriously.  When circumsta...

The Gilded Age was a time of unimaginable wealth.

Captains of industry such as John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Cornelius Vanderbilt made piles of money in the second half of the 19th century. And they knew how to spend it, too!

Each mansion had to be showier than the last, with friendly and not so friendly competition to see who could use the most marble and expensive furnishings, even going so far as creating a solid gold toilet seat.

This is the world my heroine, Evangelin...

I grew up Catholic in Tonawanda, New York, and attended grade school at St. Amelia’s, where we had Felician nuns, all Polish, many from the “old country.” I’ve written about some of my experiences with the nuns in previous posts.

My parents moved to a little brown Cape Cod on Findlay Avenue in 1954.

I spent my childhood there. It was a time when most moms stayed home, you knew all your neighbors, and our mothers never worried about sending us outside to play. We drank from that garden hose, su...

Im in the process of putting together a book launch team for my upcoming historical romance, The Test of Gold, set in New York Citys Gilded Age. 

Gilded Age mansions were beautifully decorated for Christmas. Look up the Biltmore estate in Asheville, North Carolina, to get an idea of the grandeur.

Enchanted Christmas tree in The Test of Gold.

Right now Im still looking for a few more historical fiction lovers to join my team.

An author must write blurbs, short descriptions of the story to...

My agency sibling, Annie Douglas Lima, has a new poetry book out!

Ive tried my hand at writing a few poems in my historical fiction, especially very first story, A Secret Hope.

Annie Douglas Lima, Poet

From Annie: Watch a violinist spin stars and snowflakes into existence and wake dragons. Step into a bookstore full of dusty treasures, and wander through a graveyard for poems that died before their birth. Join a solitary star treading the measures of its stately dance above a rainbow like a...

Release day is always an exciting time for an author. My last story, On the Trail of Love, released this past April.

So I am pleased to announce my critique partner, Ramona K. Cecil, has a new book releasing today!

It’s an award-winning story inspired by a real-life event—The Pigeon Roost Massacre—that took place in 1812, about thirty miles south of where she lives in southern Indiana.

Here’s the blurb:

Ginny Red Fawn McLain, a Shawnee medicine woman, is thrust back into the world of her birth f...

The Test of Gold: A Gilded Age Romance

I’m so happy to reveal the cover for my upcoming Gilded Age novel, The Test of Gold!

This is the first of three Gilded Age novels to be published by Vinspire Publishing.

After self-publishing my two early historical novels, one cowboy romance, and three novellas through Barbour Publishing, The Test of Gold is my first traditionally published novel.

Here a blurb:

A rich heiress, a cash-poor duke, and a battleaxe of a mother whose ultimate ambition is a royal...

Going to Catholic grade school for eight years at St. Amelias in Tonawanda, NY, left me with some indelible memories, like the time I went to confession and told Father Ochs that I had eleven sins of sacrilege on my soul.

I remember there was a stunned silence for a moment. Then he began to question me as to how I had possibly committed that many terrible sins.

This is it how it happened.

At St. Amelias during the school week, any student could go to Holy Communion at 11:30 am.

Usually there...

My new contemporary romance, On the Trail of Love, releases today!

I went down a rabbit hole when I wrote this story, as my usual genre is historical fiction.

But when I met a young lady who actually ran a mechanical bull business, her stories fascinated me and I knew I had the makings of a fun adventure on the road which turned into On the Trail of Love.

Having lived in Paducah, KY, for the last thirteen years, Ive also had the chance to collect a whole slew of funny Southern aphorisms and...