House of Gold

Why a Booktrail?

1911 onwards: ‘Such is the power and wealth of the Goldbaums that on dull days, it’s said, they hire the sun just for themselves.’

ISBN: 978-1786330086
Genre: Fiction, Historical

Comment

What you need to know before your trail

The Goldbaums’ influence reaches across Europe. They are the confidants and bankers of governments and emperors. Little happens without their say-so and even less without their knowledge. But Greta Goldbaum has no say at all in who she’ll marry.

Greta’s union with cousin Albert will strengthen the bond between the Austrian and the English branches of the dynasty. It is sensible and strategic. Greta is neither.

Defiant and unhappy, she is desperate to find a place that belongs to her, free from duty and responsibility. But just as she begins to taste an unexpected happiness, the Great War is looming and even the Goldbaums can’t alter its course. For the first time in two hundred years, the family will find themselves on opposing sides.

The House of Goldbaum, along with Europe herself, is about to break apart.

Locations

Reset

England - London
F: Park Lane
G: The Savoy hotel

England - Hampshire
H: Waddesdon Manor/Temple Court

Travel Guide

Austria – Vienna

In 1911, the Goldbaum family are a banking dynasty with five branches in major European capitals: London, Vienna, Paris, Berlin and Zurich. They are said to be based on the Rothschild family since there are many similar traits that are threaded throughout the book: the wealth, the dysfunction and of course the war inside and out.

The Goldbaum Palace was made of stone, not gold. Children walking along the Heugasse, buttoned smartly into their oats and hand in hand with Nanny or Mutti,were invariably disappointed. They’d been promised a palace belong to the Prince of Jews, spun out of ivory and gold and presumably studded with jewels….”

Ringstrasse

Vienna’s Ringstrasse is 5.3 kilometers long. Today, the buildings that stand there – from the Vienna State Opera to the Museum of Fine Arts – are among the most important sights in the city of Vienna. This is where in the book, the House of Gold is located.

Behind the black door lay the House of Gold:The Australian brand of the family bank”

Hampshire

Temple Court in Hampshire – is loosely modelled on Waddeson Manor, the Rothschild estate. This is where the subject of gardening and a way of escaping the world is very much apparent.

Booktrailer Review

Susan: @thebooktrailer

A compelling story about a rich banking family not too dissimilar to the Rothschild one I would imagine. The family is all about money and power.Marriage for the sake of status and even more power. Banking outposts in many European countries. But the first world war is on its way and there are political and social shakeups. The major issue is that the family is Jewish and so their wealth is tainted…

The story focuses on Greta who is married off to her cousin Albert in England. This human angle of a story of war, wider consequences and the corruption of wealth is what makes this novel different to others. It’s Greta’s story and her fears, her anguish and the war through her eyes is what we see. Money or not, women could not do what they wanted to, and as Greta navigates her way through this as best she can, she takes the reader on an epic read.

And that’s where I find the problem with the novel – it’s very long and epic in scope and I fear that there’s just too much in one book. I read this on a kindle, so maybe that is the problem, but even so, the storylines and characters might have been easier on the page. I still feel it’s too ambitious for one novel however and would have read simpler and more effectively with a less complex tale. More about the characters themselves for example would have made it feel less mirrored to the story of the Rothschilds and made it stand out on its own.

I’m still going to read the sequel though – I hope there is one!