Lahaina, 1850. What would you do if you were being forced to marry a man you didn’t love? Lani takes the only option open to her and stows away on a ship bound for San Francisco. Aidan Edwards has clawed his way back from a downward spiral of drinking and self-loathing. Bound for San Francisco, he’s healthy and happy for the first time in years, but he still doesn’t trust himself around women. Can he save the beautiful Hawaiian woman from a disastrous marriage?

Marriage To A Rough-Hewn Stranger Wasn’t Part Of Her Plan! Yet here Kate Dennington was, inconveniently married to closemouthed fur trapper Will Crockett—just to secure her rightful inheritance. She couldn’t wait to get home to Ireland—so why did any glimpse of her husband tell her home is where the heart is? He Was A Trapper, Not A Storekeep! How he got tangled up with Kate Dennington and her troubles, Will Crockett couldn’t fathom. True, the fire in Kate’s eyes made him yearn for home and hearth—but he was an adventurer, not a family man!

Newbery Medalist Avi brings us mud-caked, tent-filled San Francisco in 1848 with a willful heroine who goes on an unintended — and perilous — adventure to save her brother. Victoria Blaisdell longs for independence and adventure, and she yearns to accompany her father as he sails west in search of real gold! But it is 1848, and Tory isn’t even allowed to go to school, much less travel all the way from Rhode Island to California. Determined to take control of her own destiny, Tory stows away on the ship. Though San Francisco is frenzied and full of wild and dangerous men, Tory finds freedom and friendship there. Until one day, when Father is in the gold fields, her younger brother, Jacob, is kidnapped. And so Tory is spurred on a treacherous search for him in Rotten Row, a part of San Francisco Bay crowded with hundreds of abandoned ships. Beloved storyteller Avi is at the top of his form as he ushers us back to an extraordinary time of hope and risk, brought to life by a heroine readers will cheer for. Spot-on details and high suspense make this a vivid, absorbing historical adventure.

James went to the goldfields in Colorado and Montana and carried on correspondence with his wife, Pamelia in Little Falls, Minnesota.

These letters, 25 in all, provide a first-hand account of the emigrant experience crossing the plains, mountains, and deserts in 1850 and living and working in the new state of California during the next three years.

"The phrase ’seeing the elephant’ symbolized for ’49 gold rushers the exotic, the mythical, the once-in-a-lifetime adventure, unequaled anywhere else but in the journey to the promised land of fortune: California. Most western myths . . . generally depict an exclusively male gold rush. Levy’s book debunks that myth. Here a variety of women travel, work, and write their way across the pages of western migrant history."-Choice "One of the best and most comprehensive accounts of gold rush life to date"ˆ–San Francisco Chronicle