Release Date: February 23, 2027
About The Book:
San Francisco Peninsula, 1874: Old California collides with the Industrial Age when twenty-year-old Mexican Irish mestiza Marisol Griffin inherits a failing rancho after the death of her grandmother, a legendary healer. Overnight, Mari is thrust into unfamiliar roles: midwife, ranch boss, and defender of her family lands from greedy, powerful men. To save her rancho, she forms an unlikely alliance of women—including an elite socialite and an escaped Chinese slave—and takes on the robber barons transforming San Francisco into a Gilded Age empire. Their fight draws them into the dangerous underbelly of the city, where financial fraud, trade in opium and slaves, and unchecked ambition threaten everything they love.
Bay Lands brings to life historically real, gritty heroes and fabulously wealthy financial titans locked in an epic power struggle. Inspired by Juana Briones, Leland Stanford, William Ralston, and Ah Toy, among others, Bay Lands thrusts readers into the maelstrom of immigration pressures, new technologies, and unbridled greed that changed lives and legacies forever in the late 1800s. Combining page-turning adventure with literary depth, Bay Lands is a sweeping story of women, land, and resistance at the birth of modern California.
About The Author:
THERESA DONOVAN BROWN is a coauthor of the nonfiction social history The Social Sex: A History of Female Friendship (HarperCollins, 2015). Her fiction and essays have been published in national magazines and regional literary journals, and she has won numerous awards for her writing. Brown lives and works on the San Francisco Peninsula, where she explores local social, economic, and natural history. Learn more at the following: theresadonovanbrown.com, Substack, FaceBook, or Instagram.
Social Media:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theresa_donovan_brown_author
Book Blurbs:
“…brings the 1870s roaring to life…captivating…A truly impressive achievement.”—JACQUELINE FRIEDLAND, USA Today best-selling author of Counting Backwards and Breathing Under Water
In her vivid new novel, Theresa Donovan Browntransports readers to the unforgettable world of nineteenth century California. Epic, ambitious, and touchingly human, Bay Lands is a rich and complex novel about a richly complex place.”—Ginny Kubitz Moyer, author of The World at Home and A Golden Life
Brown’s research sings beautifully in the well-rendered era and setting….Brown delivers this novel at the exact right historical moment: Readers are likely eager to sink their teeth into a story that features industrious, ahead-of-their-time women who manage to stand up to patriarchal profit. A historical saga rich in setting and character with a knowing nod to the trials facing today’s readers.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS
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