Rating: ★★☆☆☆ – it was ok
Genre: historical romance, forbidden romance
Pros: side characters
Cons: pacing

A Heart of Gold was a pretty quick read, but by no means boring. It was full of twists and turns, some of which I saw coming and some which took me completely by surprise.

That being said, I felt the pacing was a bit off in places. There were scenes that felt stretched out too long for their content, and others that seemed like they should have some gravity which wound up taking no time at all.

I also found it a bit odd that there was never any conflict between the romantic leads. This was the first romance I have read where the romantic leads literally never had a serious disagreement. They barely had any disagreements at all actually, with basically all of the conflict coming from outside sources.

The real stars of the show were a few side characters, namely Sadie, Tom, and Lydia. Each book in the Cousins of Whitebirch Lake series is supposed to feature one of the four cousins in the family, and I am super interested to see what happens to both Sadie and Lydia in future books. Whenever we would get a hint of their lives, I was riveted. And though we actually learn very little about Tom, I found myself liking his character so much!

It definitely felt to me like the author is still developing her voice, but overall, this book was a solid first novel. I would recommend it to fans of historical romance, and look forward to seeing what else Heenan puts out.