The year is 1863. In the East, the Civil War rages on. The mountains of California seem remote and untouched by the struggle of the young nation. Tom Dawson has found a refuge from the political and social conflicts running a small ranch with his brother beneath Shadow Ridge. This man with a restless past, his "rugged, sun-browned face creviced from the weather like a landscape," discovers some measure of peace and happiness at Shadow Ridge with his brother's little family. Then comes the news that the stagecoach has been robbed and six people murdered by a gang of rebel sympathizers stealing Union gold for the South. Without warning, the turmoil of Dawson's past returns. As he moves toward a final confrontation, the Dawson home is shattered by a second tragedy. Where will he find the courage and faith to continue?

A tragic accident sends Joshua Roberts west to find peace. But in a lawless mining town, peace is hard to find. Burned nearly to death under the desert sun, he was brought back to life by the hands of a stranger. The powerful blacksmith now faces challenges he never dreamed of and responsibilities he never wanted. Hired to work at the Silver Rim mine, Roberts is unaware that the mine's future is threatened by the designs of greedy and unscrupulous enemies. And his own future becomes clouded as he unexpectedly meets a lovely, intriguing woman. Roberts truly wants to do his best as constable, even though he is more at home with a blacksmith's hammer in his hand. But can he, an Easterner plagued with painful memories from the past, bring order to a frontier town and those he has come to love?

The gold fields made him a promise. But what if the gold ran out? David Bollin, born of missionary parents in Hawaii, leaves his island home to take up a new life as a gentleman in Boston. Having rejected his father's faith, David had set out to make his own fortune and prove himself a man. But before he can realize his dream, he is plunged into an unexpected adventure—first as a hand on a whaling ship, and then as a prospector in the California gold fields. The lure of gold and the dream of a life of ease entice him onward, drawing him into a downward spiral of deceit and trapping him in a web of murder, power and greed. The glamorous future turns into despair as he becomes the target of unscrupulous enemies. Without a defense, what are his chances? Could a father's broken heart span the ocean that separated them?

Ten years of trapping had brought Will Reed to the High Sierras. Ten years in search of fortune. Ten years since the mountain men had come east with their stories of the high lonesome. Two dozen trips west had given him wisdom in the ways of the harsh and beautiful land. Now on the threshold of Spanish California, stories about the richness of the mission lands and their exotic Spanish culture lead over the mountains. Few Americans have attempted this overland trail, and fewer still have survived the crossing. But Will Reed discovers it is not just marauding Indian tribes and nature's threats that stand in his way. Mexico's newly won independence from Spain has brought an oppressive rule and a clashing of cultures where danger marks every turn. Will Reed has never shied away from danger nor from taking a stand for what is right. Loyalty and love now strengthen his resolve. And what he finds in this new land will prove the man he has become.

California during the Civil War was neither as remote nor as uninvolved as may be thought. Because of rebel sympathizers stealing Union gold for the South, Tom Dawson's brother had already been killed in the mountains of Shadow Ridge, leaving behind a family and ranch in Tom's care. But was more at stake than anyone knew then? The mines of California and the Comstock Lode were a principal source of gold and silver in which the United States government and many Northern businesses had a tremendous stake. But at least one-third of the pioneer Californians were from the South. The goal of secret Confederate societies was to take California out of the Union and form a Republic of the Pacific. Dawson finds himself the middleman in a bold attempt to infiltrate and expose the conspiracy to raise and equip an army that would engulf California in the Civil War and break the Union blockade that was strangling the South. And his only link to tracing the conspirators is a nine-year-old black child, Mont James!

On a sprawling rancho near Santa Barbara, mountain man Will Reed has found a place to call home—and a family he loves. But when the Americans and the Mexicans begin to battle over supremacy in California, their struggle threatens to destroy Will's dreams—perhaps his life. Human greed and the lust for power hold sway as both the American military and Mexican Banditos attempt to grab for themselves the wealth of central California's cattle ranches. And Will Reed's family is caught in the middle. Battling against both nature and the human propensity for evil, Will must face the most dangerous of adversaries—men who are determined to take his land at any cost. But much more than the land is at stake. Saving his family will require every ounce of courage and resourcefulness the mountain man can muster...

Andrew Jackson Sinnickson had crossed paths with Jack Powers long before Powers' name was known and feared as the genuine article: the first and worst of the California bad men. Total contrasts in character, in values, in approach to life, the two men locked horns from their original encounter in the southern presidio of Santa Barbara to the gold miners' hovels of Angel's Camp in the Sierras. Sinnickson had been on hand when the Bear Flag rebellion had carried California from Mexican to American ownership. Now to the sleepy, sparsely populated western outposts came hordes of treasure seekers—honest miners, greenhorns, gamblers, sharps, and cutthroats. Gold-fever madness in a land without law burst open a door for exploitation, and Powers and his bandits soon established their upper hand. When the price of steers jumps from $2 to $100 to feed the starving miners, Sinnickson gets involved in the first-ever California cattle drive. But it's three hundred treacherous miles that lead into the heart of Powers' strength.