A New York Times Bestselling Author
1906: Meet Vera Johnson, the resourceful fifteen-year-old illegitimate daughter of Rose, notorious proprietor of San Francisco's most legendary bordello. Vera has grown up straddling two worlds - the madam's alluring sphere, replete with tickets to the opera, surly henchmen, and scant morality, and the violent, debt ridden domestic life of the family paid to raise her. On the morning of the great quake, Vera's worlds collide. As the shattered city burns and looters vie with the injured, orphaned, and starving, Vera is cast adrift. Shea collaborates with Tan, her former rival, and forges an unlikely family of survivors. Together they have to navigate their way beyond disaster.