The fabulous Forty-Niner Gold Rush brought gold-fevered men from all over the world to San Francisco and then on to the raging Sierra Nevada rivers. They rode fast horses, drove wagons and even walked across the Great Plains, but many died or were scalped. Other argonauts boarded majestic sailing ships . . . some of which vanished in the wild storms of Cape Horn. Heather McKenna was left behind with her father in a squalid neighborhood of New York by her brother, Dennis, a dreamer ill-suited to the rigors of the Sierras. And so it is up to Heather to escape New York and a bleak future. Heather dreams of someday becoming an independent and wealthy California woman. She will use her brains and beauty to gain ship's passage then fall in love with a handsome seaman even while being courted by a rich and irresponsible rogue. In this full-blooded epic tale of hardship, adventure and triumph, Heather McKenna will overcome the malaria infested jungles of Panama, raging oceans and the lustful, scheming men of San Francisco in order to achieve her dreams of Gold & Lace.