Harold Simmons wasn't thrilled about leaving his home in Golden, Texas, after high school in the later 1940s. The shy, unassuming kid cherished the consistency of a modest small-town life. But with practically one step out of Golden, he traversed a path paved in gold.

With an unlikely start as a banker examiner and bank trainee, Simmons developed a knack for locating opportunity, eventually buying a bank and then one drugstore after another, until an initial $33,000 investment mushroomed into a $1.3 billion trust fund.

Golden Boy: The Harold Simmons Story is a gripping story of high corporate finance and corporate acquisition. Acclaimed for his popular fiction novels, including Pandora's Clock, Medusa's Child, and Skyhook, John J. Nance found Harold Simmons to be a compelling nonfiction subject and became fascinated with the unchanged personality of the billionaire, despite his meteoric success.

Despite his phenomenal success, an amassed fortune has not exempted Simmons from personal misfortune, including two divorces and a heartbreaking lawsuit brought by two of his daughters for immediate rights to their share of the trust fund. (The daughters settled for $50 million each). Still, he considers his life as a blessing, and displays his appreciation through major philanthropic projects. Old friends say that beyond his monetary success, they admire the fact that he has never become anything other than the steady and handsome young man they remember from their childhood.

Gerry Spence, renowned trial lawyer and author of How to Argue and Win Every Time, said this about Golden Boy: "Every aspiring entrepreneur must read this book. It's a powerful story of how a career and a fortune are built brick by brick as if one were constructing a house...I have never known a person as focused as Harold Simmons. The ability to possess a vision and then bravely stay on the mark, even in the severely adverse times, is an inspiration to all of us…"