In the summer of 1881, a Pacific Northwest town is buzzing with curiosity over a mysterious package received by handsome young Dr. Brown. Kitty Butler, the town dressmaker, is as curious as anyone else. She only knows one thing about that crate in the post everyone else's guesses about its contents are all wrong. When Dr. Brown unpacks the crate and reveals the first bicycle the town has ever seen, he wants to share his enthusiasm for this revolutionary new piece of technology—but encounters overwhelming hostility instead of the excitement he'd expected. The only one who seems positively interested is the pretty young widow Kitty Butler, and Dr. Brown soon realizes how much he needs her support…

"I'm sure he'll be glad you're here—once he gets used to it." When Jacob Simmons arrives in Washington Territory in the summer of 1882 and receives a glacial reception from his uncle Silas, he appreciates Dr. Brown's encouraging prediction but doesn't have much faith in it. Jacob's not even sure Silas will have time to get used to his presence, let alone consider him welcome. If the young man can't meet the draconian requirements of a contract with his business investors, he'll face exile and financial ruin, thus fulfilling old Silas' prediction that he would be just as dismal a failure as his father. His whole future rests on finding a market for a remarkable new machine—and he'll need help selling them. \\\* Addie Kellam is an incredibly lonely young woman. She's more comfortable with books than with other people, yet she longs for the sort of romance she reads about in stories. It's something she fears she'll never experience herself, since even friendship seems elusive. She envies the camaraderie her brother finds in his cycling club, but the only bicycles in the town of Chetzemoka are specifically designed for men. There aren't any wheels for women anywhere—are there?

When the delivery of a mysterious letter to Silas Hayes' mansion is followed by the arrival of a beautiful young woman who claims she can communicate with the dead, Nurse McCoy sniffs trouble in the wind. It's obvious to her that the newcomer is after Silas' fortune, but he is helplessly in awe of the medium's eerily intimate knowledge of his past and her seemingly supernatural abilities. Meanwhile, Kitty Brown's yearning to reach out to the departed spirit of her first love is making her push away her new husband, just when she needs him the most. The whole situation is a dreadful mess, and McCoy's got to straighten it all out before Silas' nephew and his bride come back from their honeymoon. Honestly, she doesn't know how any of the fools in this world would get along without her…

It's obvious to everyone in the Chetzemoka cycling club that Lizzie and Isaac could make each other very happy—but really, does anyone follow their friends' hints when it comes to affairs of the heart? A prim schoolmarm and a stoic steamship captain are hardly the people to discuss their sentiments, in spite of all that everyone else does to bring them together. Love seems so easy for other couples, yet for these two the smallest challenges loom as huge obstacles. Just when progress finally seems possible, a well-intentioned little girl steps in with the kind of help they'd be better off without. Will the situation be resolved before it's too late, or will Isaac ship out for good?

In the springtime of 1886, three women leave their comfortable homes and head out for a mountain retreat, bound for adventure and self-discovery. Addie's old friend Ethel has been away at the Territorial University of Washington for the past four years, earning her Bachelor of Science degree. So much has happened in that time, they scarcely know each other any more. When Ethel proposes a trip to a hot spring on Mt. Rainier that the other students raved about, it seems like a perfect opportunity to re-build old bonds and create new ones. Addie invites her friend Lizzie along, sure that the trip will become a golden memory for all of them. But as they head out to the mountain together, each woman carries the problems of home with her. On the eve of their departure, Addie makes a discovery that shakes her faith in her perfect marriage to its very core. Lizzie can't stop thinking about her own failure to realize her ultimate dream, and Ethel wonders if she'll ever work out what, exactly, it means to be a woman. Their journey together presents its own challenges, not the least of which begin when Ethel adopts an orphaned owl chick and decides to bring it along with them. Before they can all go home again, each of the three women will have to look to her friends for advice on dealing with life's difficult issues, and at the same time look within herself to find her own definition of womanhood.

Felix Halloway is fed up with yellow journalism. He's fed up with seeing the truth twisted by editors pushing unsavory agendas, he's fed up with sensationalist headlines, and most of all he's fed up with seeing his honest reporting perverted into such overblown hyperbole that he doesn't even recognize his own work any more. His whole life's dream has been to enoble the profession of journalism, and every day he remains on the staff of the Chezemoka Leader he sees that goal crushed more and more thoroughly past all recognition. But it's the only newspaper in town and as he tells his chum Ken, besides his goal of enobling journalism he also has a lifelong ambition not to starve to death. It's starting to feel like the only way to maintain his integrity and still keep making a living will be to leave the place that's become his home and the friends that have become his family. In 1889, a year which sees Seattle burn to the ground and Washington Territory achieve statehood, Felix will be forced to make some tough decisions about how to stay true to himself in a corrupt world.

We all have dreams we never really expect to come to pass, but sometimes there's one we want so badly that we just have to try for it against all odds. For Fred Hooker (a.k.a. "Bumps), the science-loving, sharp shooting heiress Ethel Hauser is just such a dream. But what could a woman like her ever see in a shy photographer who makes his living from light and shadows? Ethel, for her part, is too focused on dealing with a decidedly unwanted house guest to spare much thought for romance, and in any case her previous attempts at it had always been such disappointing mismatches that she's more or less resigned herself to loneliness. With the help of their friends in the cycling club these two might just get together, but even if they can overcome their own awkwardness they've still got more troubles to contend with. Between a shrewish and overbearing chaperone, cycle crashes, a dark threat to the town, and a rather frightful poodle, Fred and Ethel are going to find themselves on a very bumpy road to marriage.