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Is a false father better than no father at all?

 

Jake has none of the virtues of the Gilded Age masculine ideal. Where he should be aggressive, he is contemplative. Where he should be ambitious, he is wayward. Where he should be money-driven, he is artistic.

 

Two years after his grandfather’s death, nineteen-year-old Jake takes up the role of family patriarch and heir to the Alderdice family businesses. But he’s not sure he’s cut out to be a businessman.

 

Jake plans to decide his future during his family’s summer trip to Waxwood, a small coastal town turned luxurious resort for Nob Hill’s elite. While there, he befriends a man who becomes a father figure, promising to mold him into the Teddy Roosevelt ideal, shaping him into the man he’s meant to be.

 

But danger and heartache are lurking in Jake’s path, and his father figure may turn out to be more hindrance than help.

 

Book 2 of the Waxwood Series is a touching coming-of-age story from one of America's most chaotic times by the author of the bestseller LESSONS FROM MY MOTHER’S LIFE, which debuted at #1 in the Amazon Historical Short Stories category.

 

Get False Fathers today to find out if Jake will become the man his grandfather wanted him to be.

 

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THE WAXWOOD SERIES

The Specter (Waxwood Series: Book 1)

Pathfinding Women (Waxwood Series: Book 2) - coming in September 2020

Dandelion Children (Waxwood Series: Book 4)

 

To find out more about the Waxwood Series, go here.

 

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Front Cover Photo Credit: Portrait of a Young Man, Ferdinand von Wright, 1860s, portrait, oil on canvas, Finnish National Gallery: BotMultichill/Wikimedia Commons/PD old 100 expired    

 

 

The afternoon sun had arrived with its vengeance of rising heat. Jake took out his handkerchief and wiped at his forehead. At the same time, he felt something inside him shiver. He couldn’t help but think of what Vivian would have said, if she had heard the tale. He knew she would have found it one more reason to avoid Stevens, as the story would have struck her as another way in which Roger had been right about the way in which Stevens and his father engineered their will against the will of others.

“I suppose your father understood you.” He put the handkerchief away and made a shot through the hoop in front of him. 

As Stevens set down his mallet down, Jake felt the weight of his expectant eyes. “I thought you would change your mind.”

“Change my mind?”

“About needing guidance,” said the redhead. “You needn’t be abashed. Other young men such as yourself have come to me when they needed a father too.”

“I didn’t say I needed a father.” Jake looked at the tussled grass at his feet. “I only meant I would be grateful for any ideas you have for me about my new undertakings.”

“As you wish,” said Stevens, though his eyes sparkled in the sun.