BORN OF GILDED MOUNTAINS is the tale of a silver screen queen from Hollywood’s golden age, disappearing to the mountain hamlet of Mercy Peak, Colorado, in order to pick up the pieces of her life and keep a promise to a long-lost friend.
In this story of community, friendship, adventure, treasure hunt, lost-dreams-found, and restoration, music plays a special role. A few of the songs below are actually in the story, and a few were integral to the writing process. Join me for a virtual concert? You can hear a full playlist here, but below is a deep-dive into five extra special songs:
- Dream a Little Dream (Michael Bublé)
Rusty (nickname for Ruby) Bright and Marybeth Spatts (later known as Mercy Windsor in her Hollywood life) grow up as pen pals who become best friends in the 1930’s and 40’s. When Marybeth is facing desolation as a young girl, and wishes she’d had a mother who might have sung her a lullaby like the one she hears a neighbor singing, Rusty writes to Marybeth to go turn on the radio, and the first song she hears will be her lullaby. That song turns out to be Dream a Little Dream, which re-visits Marybeth in surprising and meaningful ways later in the book.
- Known and Loved (Blue Light Bandits, Joel Ansett)
The song begins like this: “You’re in a place you think you know / Surrounded, but you feel alone / You have a place to rest your head, but not a home…” And later goes on to say, “…’cause when you are fully known and loved, you have a home.” This resonates with both Rusty’s and Mercy’s story arcs, in different ways—each of them struggling in their adult lives to find belonging. The story chronicles each of their journeys, through friendship and community, to being “fully known and loved.”
Oh, this song is fun. And it is ALL Rusty. She’s a plucky, sometimes bristly character with a hard exterior but fathoms of heart inside her. She doesn’t quite know what to do with the attentions of newcomer Casey Campbell, but if any song could be theirs…this would be it. Come on, Rusty. Take that dance…
While Born of Gilded Mountains has love stories and small-town charm and treasure hunt and riddles to solve, at its core it’s a friendship tale between best friends Rusty and Mercy. Friends who’ve known each other through thick and thin, who would do anything for one another until the unthinkable happens…and after that, who must find their way back to the treasure of their friendship. I love this song for them and especially love JJ Heller’s cover of the Pretenders version—it fits the era, and it suits their friendship.
This song was with me through every writing and editing session…and there were many. It seems to hold the essence of the book to me—the story of transformation, of depth, of something that once seemed to be bound by limits, exploding into limitless life. And the vintage magic of it doesn’t hurt a bit, either.
Historical Fiction Small Mountain-Town Women's Friendship Novel Set in the 1940s
A lost treasure. A riddled quest. The healing power of friendship.
Legends are tucked into every fold of the Colorado mountains surrounding the quaint town of Mercy Peak, where residents are the stuff of tall tales, the peaks are taller still, and a lost treasure has etched mystery into the very terrain.
In 1948, when outsider Mercy Windsor arrives after a scandal shatters her gilded world as Hollywood's beloved leading lady, she is determined to forge a new life in obscurity in this time-forgotten Colorado haven. She purchases Wildwood, an abandoned estate with a haunting history, and begins to restore it to its former glory.
But as she does, her every move tugs at the threads of the mountain's lore, unearthing what became of her long-lost pen pal Rusty Bright, and the whereabouts of the infamous Galloping Goose Railcar No. 8, which vanished years ago--along with the mailbag it carried, whose contents could change the course of countless lives. Not to mention the fabled treasure that--if found--could right so many wrongs.
Among the towering mountains that stand as silent witnesses, the ghosts of the past entangle with the courage of the present to find a place where healing, friendship, and hope can abide amid a world forever changed.
Christian Historical [Bethany House Publishers, On Sale: June 18, 2024, Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780764239519 / eISBN: 9781493446605]
Amanda Dykes’ debut novel, Whose Waves These Are, is the winner of the prestigious 2020 Christy Book of the Year Award, a Booklist 2019 Top Ten Romance debut, and the winner of an INSPY Award. She’s also the author of Yours Is the Night (Kipp Award, Christy finalist) and Set the Stars Alight (Historical Novels Review Editor’s Choice, Christy finalist), All the Lost Places (starred reviews from Booklist, Library Journal, and Forword; Christy finalist).
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