Dreams of Gold — Elaine L. Schulte

Rose Wilmington, an Christian for five years who feels coerced to marry Willard Stanford, the bad-seed twin of her late fiance. She leaves Georgetown to sail around Cape Horn to California to join her father. Joshua Talbot, who aided in her escape, brings her love and hope. When they arrive in San Francisco, the gold rush has just begun in earnest -- and with it comes a Joshua that Rose has never seen. With a chance to amass a great fortune, he is no longer the gentleman Rose first met. Rebelling against Rose because of her church activities, he becomes involved in the wild gold rush lifestyle. But Rose's prayers never cease. She has a dream for Joshua -- a golden dream. There was no discounting those hands. Someone was determined to kill her. As the crippled Confederate army struggled desperately on their last scrap of hope during the final months of the Civil War, Caroline Hannah was fighting her own battle for survival. No longer safe at Wesleyan Female College, Caroline was sent to stay with her mother's cousins on Looking Glass Plantation in southwestern Georgia. But something made her believe that she wasn't welcome there, not on any terms. Then the war claimed both father and fianc, and there was nowhere else to go. With the South crumbling around her, uncertain even if she can trust her own family, Caroline conquers her fears through faith and love, amid the ashes and ruin of war.