Old California collides with the Industrial Age when twenty-year-old Mexican Irish mestiza Marisol Griffin inherits a failing rancho after the death of her grandmother, a legendary healer. To save her rancho from San Francisco robber barons, Mari forms an unlikely alliance of women – from an elite socialite to an escaped Chinese slave.Their fight draws them into the dangerous underbelly of the city, where financial fraud, illegal trade, and unchecked ambition threaten everything they love. 

 

Inspired by Juana Briones, Leland Stanford, William Ralston, Tien Fuh, and Ah Toy, among others, this literary page-turner thrusts readers into the maelstrom of immigration pressures, new technologies, and unbridled greed that changed lives and legacies forever. A sweeping story of women, land, and resistance at the birth of modern California.