One wet autumn evening in 1848, 15-year-old Mary Ann Gill stole out of her bedroom window in Sydney and took a coach to a racecourse where she was to secretly marry her dashing gentleman suitor, James Kinchela. Her enraged father chased after the couple and fired two pistols at the groom, narrowly missing. What followed was Australia's most scandalous abduction trial of the era, as well as an extraordinary story of adventure and misadventure with imprisonment, bankruptcy, and eviction. Defying the odds, Mary Ann eventually married her man, and they made their fortune on a ranch in California. Starting with just a newspaper clipping, Kiera Lindsey has uncovered the world of her great, great, great-aunt, a feisty Australian who lived and loved during a period of dramatic social and political change.