Bay Lands: A Novel

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San Francisco Peninsula, 1874: In this female-centered adventure of Old California colliding with the Industrial Age, twenty-year-old Mexican Irish mestiza Marisol Griffin inherits a failing rancho after the death of her grandmother, a legendary healer. Mari is thrust overnight into unfamiliar roles – midwife, ranch boss, and defender of her family lands that powerful men want. To save her rancho, Mari forms an unlikely alliance of women – from an elite socialite to an escaped Chinese slave – and takes on the robber barons transforming San Francisco into a Gilded Age empire. Their fight draws them into the dangerous underbelly of the city, where financial fraud, trade in opium and slaves, and unchecked ambition threaten everything they love.

 

Bay Lands brings to life historically real, gritty heroes and fabulously wealthy financial titans in an epic power struggle. Inspired by Juana Briones, Leland Stanford, William Ralston, and Ah Toy, among others, Bay Lands thrusts readers into the maelstrom of immigration pressures, new technologies, and unbridled greed that changed lives and legacies forever. Contrasting the blood and beauty of old ranchos with big-money power struggles, Bay Lands combines page-turning adventure with literary depth – a sweeping story of women, land, and resistance at the birth of modern California.