About the Book

Book: The Gilded Curse

Author: Marilyn Turk

Genre: Historical Suspense

Release Date: July 31, 2023

In early 1942, a mysterious telegram draws Lexie Smithfield back to the island her mother thought was cursed. Now the only heir to the dwindling family fortune, Lexie plans to sell the family’s vacation “cottage” in the Millionaire’s Village on Jekyll Island. But someone else is interested in the cottage and is getting more desperate to find what they’re looking for, even to the point of murder.

Lexie’s childhood friend, Russell Thompson, is now the Jekyll Island Club’s superintendent and the keeper of members’ secrets, especially one that would shatter Lexie. When he learns Lexie is in danger, he stays close to protect her, but soon discovers an attraction to Lexie he didn’t expect.

Could the danger be from someone they know or is it possible that the threat of Nazi invasion on their coast is a reality? Or is the island really cursed?

Russell and Lexie must work together to discover the real danger and keep from getting hurt or killed in the process.

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My Review:

I have always been a huge fan of historical fiction. Then you add a bit of suspense, action, and romance to a story! Well, let's just say you have grabbed my attention.

This story plot is 1942 on Jekyll Island. It’s the beginning of when America entered War World II. Lexie Smithfield returns to her family cottage after being absent from it for the last ten years. She plans on selling the cottage. Her family stopped visiting the cottage after her father died suspiciously. Both her mother and brother are deceased too.

She is the sole owner of the cottage. The resort was lived in by her grandparents. Now the home needs a lot of work to restore it to its former glory.

Lexie is reacquainted with her childhood friend Russell Thompson. He offers to help her restore the cottage. They both find themselves in danger. Russell knows more than he is saying about the cottage.

This is a page-turner that kept me intrigued to the last page. This spins a different plot from most books in this genre. The spiritual content was genuine and not over-dramatized. This was also a new author for me and I look forward to her next book in the Suspicious Shores series.

Disclosure: I received this complimentary product through Celebrate Lit Bloggers in exchange for my honest thoughts.

About the Author

Award-winning author Marilyn Turk writes historical and contemporary fiction flavored with suspense and romance. Marilyn also writes devotions for Daily Guideposts, Walking in Grace, and contributes to other Guideposts publications. She and her husband are lighthouse enthusiasts, have visited over 100 lighthouses and also served as volunteer lighthouse caretakers at Little River Light off the coast of Maine.

When not writing or visiting lighthouses, Marilyn enjoys reading, walking, boating, fishing, gardening, tennis, and playing with her golden retriever. She also sings in the choir at her church and leads a women’s Bible study group. Marilyn and her husband have a combined family of four sons, one daughter, and four grandsons. She’s still hoping for a granddaughter someday.

She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers, Faith, Hope and Love Christian Writers, Advanced Writers and Speakers Association, Word Weavers International, and the United States Lighthouse Society.

Marilyn is also the director of the Blue Lake Christian Writers Conference.

More from Marilyn

When my agent told me a certain publisher was looking for Southern Gothic novels,

I wondered what those were. What I found out was that they were gothic-style novels set in the South, usually an old antebellum mansion, for example, “Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte.” Think “Jane Eyre” or “Wuthering Heights” set in the southern United States. I had just visited Jekyll Island, Georgia and toured the Millionaires’ Village there, so those mansions came to mind. These homes, which were actually vacation “cottages” of the rich and famous, were built in the Gilded Age of the late 1800s and early 1900s. It is said that the 100 members of the club represented most of the wealth in America at that time. However, the members aged and passed away, leaving their wealth or debt to their descendants, the Great Depression caused many to lose their fortunes, then two world wars wreaked havoc on the country, so most of those homes were abandoned. Thanks to ongoing renovation efforts by the state of Georgia, many have been rebuilt. My main character in The Gilded Curse, Alexandra Smithfield (Lexie), inherits one of those abandoned mansions right at the start of World War II. The family fortune gone, she intends to renovate and sell the mansion she hasn’t seen since childhood since her mother believed the island cursed, due to some tragedies that happened to their family while there. So Lexie is “cursed” in two ways – by inheriting something she can no longer afford to keep and by the imagined curse her mother believes. When suspicious events happen around her cottage, she wonders if her mother was right.

Today, you can take tours of the Millionaires’ Village and see the former “cottages” of Pulitzer, Vanderbilt, J.P. Morgan, etc. You can also stay at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel, renovated and now part of the Jekyll Island Club Resort. Some of the characters in my book were real people who lived in 1942, particularly the Maurice sisters, two single sisters who loved the island and never wanted to leave it, even when the President of the United States wanted the island vacated during the war. One interesting thing about the Maurice house: efforts to renovate it have met one obstacle after another, leading some people to believe the sisters’ spirits are still there and very particular about what they want done to their house.