The history of California in the mid-19th century comes alive in this captivating historical novel. Garnet Cameron, a fashionable young lady of New York, is leading a neat, proper life, full of elegant parties and polite young men, yet the prospect of actually marrying any of them appalls her. Yearning for adventure, she instead marries Oliver Hale, a wild trader who is about to cross the mountains and deserts to an unheard-of land called California. During Garnet and Oliver's honeymoon in New Orleans, she meets a dance-hall performer on the lam who calls herself Florinda Grove and is also traveling to California. Along the Jubilee Trail, Garnet and Florinda meet kinds of men never known to them before, and together they make their painstaking way over the harsh trail to Los Angeles, learning how to live without compromise and discover both true friendship and true love.

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Gwen Bristow is the author of a number of bestselling historical novels, including Calico Palace, Celia Garth, Deep Summer, Golden Dreams, The Handsome Road, This Side of Glory, and Tomorrow Is Forever. Nancy E. Turner is the author of These Is My Words, Sarah's Quilt, and The Water and the Blood. Sandra Dallas is the author of Alice's Tulips, The Diary of Mattie Spenser, New Mercies, The Persian Pickle Club, and The Quilt that Walked to Golden.

"[This] thrilling picture of the foundation on which our West was built is heartily recommended."  ?Library Journal

"Bristow has the true gift of storytelling."  ?Chicago Tribune

"By its exuberance and occasional rowdiness . . . it hits the time and place."  “Christian Science Monitor

"Garnet's lively curiosity and untrained intelligence, Florinda's dramatic past, and the every day living in what is now history?all have strong, popular appeal."  “Kirkus Reviews

"It is a ripping good tale that deserves resurrection."  ?Historical Novels Review