One young man flees the poverty and hopelessness of the Irish potato famine. Another musters out of the Civil War to return only to devastation. A third rejects the demands of farming on the windswept Great Plains to seek employment as a piano player in a saloon. A young girl is abused and abandoned but makes her way from England to America and ultimately with the others to the silver mining boom town of Virginia City, Nevada, in the 1860s. Here these diverse characters and others they meet along the way find hope, success, challenges, opportunities and disappointments, but all learn the depth of their character and help forge the young city. A mysterious gentlemen enters their realm and in his own subtle ways changes their lives forever, inserting himself into the group of influential gentlemen who gather at The Corner Saloon adjacent to Virginia City's famed Opera House. The book draws on the actual history of Virginia City and events of the era. Imagery and dialogue are crisp and the characters well-developed and engaging.