The Gold That Glitters: The Mistakes of Jenny Lavender

England, 1660. The king is dead and a nation holds its breath, but sixteen-year-old Jenny Lavender has bigger worries: she's abandoned her grandmother's farm to chase dreams of elegance at Colonel Lane's country estate. She wants adventure. She wants romance. She wants to escape the mud and drudgery of rural life for something glittering. What she finds is far more complicated than ballrooms and handsome suitors. As a lady's maid, Jenny discovers that serving others demands more than she anticipated, that her glamorous ambitions blind her to what matters, and that the dashing Robin Featherstone may not be the hero she imagines. Her grandmother's warnings echo across miles of English countryside, but youth rarely listens. Holt writes with sharp affection for her spirited but misguided heroine, capturing that universal moment when dreams collide with reality and we must choose between the gold that glitters and the gold that endures. A quietly wise coming-of-age story set against one of England's most turbulent eras.