Originally published in 1998, repackaged 2011. Set in the 1860s, on the opening page we meet feisty teenager Jordana climbing up the wall of a four story building! She has been sent to a fashionable school for particularly intelligent young ladies while her parents are abroad. Her brother Brenton is her guardian while her parents are away and he is understandably appalled by her action but knows his sister well enough not to be really surprised! She constantly rebels against the discipline and what she considers are the petty rules of the head teacher. Their adopted, much older, sister Victoria is in California with her husband Kiernan who is seeking their fortune in the gold fields. The stories of the younger siblings and Victoria and Kiernan run side by side through the book, complicated by the arrival of Kiernan’s sister Caitlan from Ireland and her need to go west to find her brother. A further complication is that civil war between the north and south makes travelling very difficult, and yet rich and powerful men are still pressing on with the idea of linking the east and west with a railroad. An exciting historical tale of endeavour, of love, and of adventure and this is only Book One! There is much yet to be resolved.