Paint and Nectar (#02 in Heirloom Secrets Series)

A beautifully written story. I got more and more invested the further I got into the story. Clark is so clever how she connects the two stories together, the modern day and the past. I've enjoyed the first two stories and I'm now looking forward to the third. The covers are beautiful.

Ashley Clark's debut novel, The Dress Shop on King Street, was a powerful dual-timeline story that highlighted and humanised the tragedy and inhumanity of racism. Paint and Nectar has the same brilliant writing, the same excellent research, and the same fascinating setting: the city of Charleston. But I didn't find the story nearly so compelling. It was a variation of the Romeo and Juliet story. Two families each blame the other for stealing and hiding valuable Paul Revere silver. In the past timeline, Eliza and William Pinckney meet and fall in love, but are driven apart by their feuding families and the lust for silver. \\n\\nIn the present, Lucy Legare falls for Declan Pinckney before she finds that not only is he the Pinckney heir, but his father is trying to force her out of her house . . . partly because he wants to find the missing silver, which he believes is buried in her garden. \\n\\nOne reason I didn't find this as compelling was that the underlying intergenerational conflict wasn't believable. Even in the past timeline, an hour with a metal detector would have provided the answer to the mystery of the buried silver. There were also several nuggets of wisdom in the story, and they kept me engaged. Overall, this was a solid story but it didn't have the impact of The Dress Shop on King Street, which was excellent. Thanks to Bethany House and NetGalley for providing a free ebook for review. \\n\\n