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Christy Award finalist Deeanne Gist's compelling best seller portrays Rachel Van Buren's efforts to escape the gold-rush quagmire of 1849 San Francisco - with her high moral principles intact. Rachel is shocked by this mud-infested boomtown, where the only females are of ill repute. When saloon owner Johnnie Parker, a widower and former missionary, allows her to stay in his unoccupied shanty, she agrees to cook and clean for him. But Rachel soon struggles with their growing attraction.

Despite years on the run, Sophie Neumann is determined to care for two young children. She won't abandon them the way she thinks her older sisters abandoned her. But times are growing desperate, and when she falls in with the wrong crowd and witnesses a crime, she realizes fleeing 1850s New York is her only option. Disappearing with her two young charges into a group of orphans heading west by train, Sophie hopes to find safety and a happy life. When the train stops in Illinois for the first placement of orphans, Sophie faces the most difficult choice of her life.

When a financial crisis in 1850s New York leaves three orphaned sisters nearly destitute, the oldest, Elise Neumann, knows she must take action. She's had experience as a seamstress, and the New York Children's Aid Society has established a special service: placing out seamstresses and trade girls. Even though Elise doesn't want to leave her sisters for a job in Illinois, she realizes this may be their last chance.

Anthony Blake is in love with his best friend's sister, Sophia Elliot. But his plans to court her are put on hold when he is forced to resume his role as an undercover spy for the Crown. A secret document listing the names of the entire network of British spies - including his own - has been stolen. To protect Sophia, Anthony cuts off all ties to her and exchanges his life as an honorable earl for the facade of a flirtatious playboy.

Jack would rather be at sea than fixing the mistakes of his grandfather, the late Earl of Stansworth. Instead, he finds that inheriting his grandfather's wealth and title and securing the welfare of his sister and mother means joining the ranks of high society and living with the aristocracy. Luckily, Ivy Carslisle, the granddaughter of a dear friend of Jack's late grandmother, is willing to teach him etiquette and properly introduce him into society.

Allie Kirkland has never been one to take wild risks. But when she's offered a costuming assistant's job on a docudrama in the hills near Moses Lake, she jumps at the chance. She's always dreamed of following in her director-father's footsteps, and the reenactment of the legendary frontier settlement of Wildwood is a first step. The family expectations will have to wait. But in 1861, the real Wildwood held dangerous realities. Town founder Harland Delevan held helpless residents, including young Irish schoolteacher Bonnie Rose, in an iron grip.

Sydney Wells' perfect life with her wealthy, devoted husband vanishes when he dies suddenly in an accident. Widowed at 49, she discovers he has failed to include her in his will. With Andrew's vicious daughters in control of his estate, and no home or money, Sydney finds a job in fashion, despite her own designer daughters' warnings. Naive, out of her element, and alone in a world of shady international deals and dishonest people, she is set up by her boss and finds herself faced with criminal prosecution.

Miriam steps off the train looking for a job, not a husband. She refuses to be wed, and Gideon is unspeakably embarrassed by the misunderstanding. Stranded in Savage Wells, Miriam has nowhere else to go - and a secret that she's determined to keep from everyone. She has epilepsy, a condition that other doctors had claimed was symptomatic of madness, a diagnosis which prompted her family to have her committed to an asylum. Miriam is afraid that if Dr. MacNamara finds out the truth, he will send her back to the asylum, but Gideon is not like the other doctors she has encountered.

Paisley Bell knows the eccentric people of Savage Wells. From the absentminded shopkeeper who always thinks she's been robbed to the young man who has returned shell-shocked from the war, Paisley has compassion for them all. When the sheriff up and leaves town, Paisley steps up and assumes the responsibility, partly because she loves the work but also because she needs the income to take care of her sick father.

When his father and older brother suddenly pass away, the new Duke of Haverly is saddled with a title he never expected to bear. To thwart the plans of his scheming family, the duke impulsively marries a wallflower. After all, she's meek and mild; it should be easy to sequester her in the country and get on with his life - as a secret agent for the Crown.