Hope, who has always craved adventure, is abducted from her Cornwall, England home in the early 1850s and taken to Gold Rush San Francisco. She escapes her kidnapper and lives with the California Indians for a year. She travels the Pacific Northwest with a mountain man, is attacked by a wolverine, and eventually creates a life in Victoria, on Vancouver Island. This story also follows Hope's friend, Ian, who leaves Cornwall to search for her until he's convinced she's burned to death in a fire. He becomes embroiled in the San Francisco underworld, determined to avenge her death. Life aboard ship, and with the Indians, as well as with Micah, the trapper, transforms Hope into "a woman to reckon with."