Howard Fast (New York Times Bestseller)
Dan Lavette, the son of an Italian fisherman, battles from the rubble of the San Francisco earthquake to build a fortune in the shipping industry. Rising to success through hard work and a loveless marriage to the daughter of the city's wealthiest family, he risks it all for the exotic beauty of a woman who shares his secret and scandalous passion. From Nob Hill to the harbor, San Francisco comes alive through three immigrant families -- Italian, Irish, and Chinese -- whose intertwining dreams are propelled by the emotional events of America's coming of age.

Hija De La Fortuna: Novela

Isabelle Allende

Eliza Sommers es una joven chilena que vive en Valpara so en 1849, el a o en que se descubre oro en California. Su amante, Joaqu n Andieta, parte hacia el norte decidido a encontrar fortuna, y ella decide seguirlo. El viaje infernal, escondida en la cala de un velero, y la b squeda de su amante en una tierra de hombres solos y prostitutas atra dos por la fiebre del oro, transforman a la joven inocente en una mujer fuera de lo com n. Eliza recibe ayuda y afecto de Tao Chi'en, un m dico chino, quien la conducir de la mano en un itinerario memorable por los misterios y contradicci nes de la condici n humana. hija de la fortuna es un retrato palpitante de una poca marcada por la violencia y la codicia en la cual los protagonistas rescatan el amor, la amistad, la compasi n y el valor.

Daughter of Fortune: A Novel - The English Version.

The Human Tradition in California
(The Human Tradition in America)

Clark Davis, David Ingler, Editors

With a land mass one and half times larger than the United Kingdom, a population of more than thirty million, and an economy that would rank sixth among world nations, the history of the state of California demands a closer look. The Human Tradition in California captures the region's rich history and diversity, taking readers into the daily lives of ordinary Californians at key moments in time. These brief biographies show how individual people and communities have influenced the broad social, cultural, political and economic forces that have shaped California history from the pre-mission period through the late-twentieth century.

Sister Noon

Karen Joy Fowler

Lizzie Hayes, a member of the San Francisco elite, is a seemingly docile, middle-aged spinster praised for her volunteer work with the Ladies Relief and Protection Society Home, or "The Brown Ark". All she needs is the spark that will liberate her from the ruling conventions. When the wealthy and well-connected, but ill-reputed Mary Ellen Pleasant shows up at the Brown Ark, Lizzie is drawn to her. It is the beautiful, but mysterious Mary Ellen, an outcast among the women of the elite because of her notorious past and her involvement in voodoo, who will eventually hold the key to unlocking Lizzie's rebellious nature.

Sacramento Daily Union, June 29, 1854: "LAUDABLE.--The distinguished actor and liberal man, James E. Murdock, is to give a Shakespearian reading on the 29th inst., for the benefit of the "Ladies Protection and Relief Society" of San Francisco.

The Bear Flag: A Novel of California

Cecelia Holland

Widowed on the arduous trek west, proud Cat Reilly takes whatever work she can find in Sutter's Fort and mixes with such types as Kit Carson before falling in love and becoming involved in the battle for California's independence. Her life is interwoven with such American heroes as Kit Carson, John C. Fremont, John Sutter, John Bidwell, and Don Mariano Vallejo. Major historical events such as the Kelsey-Bidwell-Bartleson Crossing of the Great Basin and the Sierra in 1841, the Fremont and Carson Winter Crossing in 1844, and the Bear Flag Revolt of 1846, form the backdrop for Cat's story. Reprint.

California Gold

John Jakes
In this sweeping epic, James Macklin Chase was a poor Pennsylvanian who dreamed of making it rich in California. But at the turn of the century, the money to be made was in oil, citrus, water rights, and the railroads. Mack would have it all, if he had his way. And along the way, the men and women he met, the passion he found, the enemies he made, and the great historical figures like William Randolph Hearts, Leland Stanford, and Theodore Roosevelt, he encountered, helped bring glory to the extraordinary century. ~ A Literary Guild Main Selection

Santa Cat: Behind the Lace Curtains 1856-1926
(Contemporary California Fiction)

Margaret Koch
Santa Cat, located at one end of Monterey Bay, also has rum-running, adultery, fraternal orders that would rather play cards than march, houses of ill-repute, sexism and a variety of other shenanigans.

The Californios

Louis L'Amour
Captain Sean Mulkerin comes home from the sea to find his family s Malibu ranch in jeopardy. The death of Sean s father has pushed his mother to the edge of financial ruin, and now it s up to Sean to find a way out. The rumor is that the elder Mulkerin found gold in the wild and haunted California hills, but the only clue to its whereabouts lies with an ancient, enigmatic Indian. When Sean and his brother set forth to retrace their father s footsteps, they know they are in search of a questionable treasure with creditors, greedy neighbors, and ruthless gunmen watching every move they make.

The Biograph Girl

William J. Mann

The birth of the film industry and the advent of the world's first film star, Florence Lawrence, the original "Biograph Girl," form the basis of this fictionalized account of one woman's life in a burgeoning industry that changed the parameters of entertainment. The real silent film actress Lawrence committed suicide in 1938 by drinking ant poison. The fictional Lawrence not only goes on to have her own life, but lives to the ripe old age of 107. Lawrence's compelling story could easily stand alone: she starts out in show business as a stagestruck child, famous as "Baby Flo" for her whistling talents; has a knack for hooking up with the wrong men.

Thousand Pieces of Gold

Ruthanne Lum McCunn

Lalu Nathoy's father called his thirteen-year-old daughter his treasure, his "thousand pieces of gold," yet when famine strikes northern China in 1871, he is forced to sell her. Polly, as Lalu is later called, is sold to a brothel, sold again to a slave merchant bound for America, auctioned to a saloonkeeper, and offered as a prize in a poker game. This biographical novel is the extraordinary story of one woman's fight for independence and dignity in the American West.

The Indian Lover: A Novel

Gareth Murphy
With a sweeping sense of history and landscape that contributed to making Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, and the sense of character and passion that made the brilliant Cold Mountain so successful, Garth Murphy has written a brilliant saga about California in its last days as part of Mexico, and about the lives of those caught up in this moment of historical high drama. The cast of characters are both real and fictional, including a seemingly not-told-very-often story of the Indians fighting for their survival against the Mexicans who desperately fight to hold on to vast tracts of land they usurped from missionaries and Native Americans and, later, people from around the globe as The World Rushed In .

California Dons:
Recollections of Life on a California Rancho Over a Century Ago

Ralph Milliken
California as we know it today was largely formed during the rancho period of the first half of the 19th century. The political boundaries, place names, and land ownership that were established at that time have persisted down to the present and have profound influence to this day. This book shed some light on the Rancho period.

The Octopus: A California Story

Frank Norris

This turn-of-the-century epic focuses on California wheat farmers struggling against the rapacity of the Pacific and Southwestern Railroad, which will stop at nothing to extend its domination. The company controls the local paper, the land, the legislature and, when the farmers organize to protect themselves, even manages to control their representative on the state rate-fixing commission. An unremitting tale of greed and betrayal, originally intended as one-third of Norris' never-completed "Epic of the Wheat" trilogy.

Down to a Soundless Sea

(Ballantine Reader's Circle)
Thomas Steinbeck

In seven stories, Steinbeck traces the fates and dreams of an eccentric cast of characters, from sailors and ranchers, to doctors and immigrants as each struggles to carve out a living in the often inhospitable environment of rocky cliffs, crashing surf, and rough patches of land along the California coast and the Big Sur. Set at the turn of the century to the 1930s.

Immortal Wife

Irving Stone

A great book if you enjoy romance, history and the flavor of the Civil War era and the well-researched novels of Irvien Stone. John C. Fremont, a great explorer, arrived early on the California landscape. He and his wife were very much against slavery, and started Civil War talk against slavery even before President Lincoln did.

Eye of the Bear: A History Novel of Early California

Naida West

First in the California Gold Trilogy consisting of 1. Eye of the Bear: A History Novel of Early California, 2. River of Red Gold, and 3. Rest for the Wicked: A History Novel. Naida West, Ph.D., lives with her husband on their little ranch in California's "Gold Country." The ranch lies alongside the Cosumnes River, a primary setting in her novels. In Eye of the Bear, Grizzly Hair, a Miwok Indian, leaves his peaceful village in 1824 to investigate the mysteries of the Spanish missions. He's captured and taken to Mission San Jose, where he escapes and participates in a huge native rebellion against government forces. This moving story of adventure and love brings to life forgotten native peoples, Spanish colonials, Russians in Fort Ross, and American trapper Jedediah Smith (No Ordinary Mountain Man - Oklahoma Western Biographies).

Sierra: A Novel of the California Gold Rush

Richard Wheeler

An epic tale of riches, greed, and love set against the backdrop of The California Gold Rush of 1849. When news of the gold strike sweeps the east, along with thousands of others, Ulysses McQueen is smitten with gold fever. He heads west, leaving his new bride and a settled life in Iowa behind. And when Stephen Jarvis, a New York cooper's apprentice is discharged from the army in Monterey, he finds himself in the middle of the upheaval that transformed California into a gold-fevered madhouse.

Love Awakens the Heart: Whatever Tomorrow Brings/As Times Goes By

Lori Wick

Set in San Francisco in the 1870s - just after the gold rush years - The Californians brings a fabled era to life. Whatever Tomorrow Brings begins with the Donovan family stepping off a clipper ship for a holiday from their missionary post in Hawaii. Tragedy meets them instead, and twenty-year-old Kaitlin must hold her family together in an unfamiliar land. The second part of the saga, As Time Goes By, turns to another branch of the family, the Taylors. Historically accurate.