1906 by James Dalessandro
Set during the great San Francisco earthquake and fire, this page-turning historical novel reveals recently uncovered facts that forever change our understanding of what really happened. Narrated by a feisty young reporter, Annalisa Passarelli, the novel paints a vivid picture of the Post-Victorian city, from the mansions of Nob Hill to the underbelly of the Barbary Coast to the arrival of tenor Enrico Caruso and the Metropolitan Opera. Central to the story is the ongoing battle fought even as the city burns that pits incompetent and unscrupulous politicians against a coalition of honest police officers, newspaper editors, citizens, and a lone federal prosecutor.

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
A classic saga that traces the fortunes of four generations of one family as they attempt to build a life for themselves in the American West.

The Bear Flag by Cecelia Holland
Cat Reilly travels from Boston to the California territory by wagon train with the help of John C. Fremont and Kit Carson, and she and her lover, Count Sohrakoff, struggle to make California an independent republic.

The Biograph Girl by William J. Mann
Meticulously blending fact and real-life characters with fiction, this richly textured historical novel re-creates the life of Florence Lawrence, an early twentieth-century actress and vaudevillian who by 1910, was the "Biograph Girl," the world's first movie star.

The Blossom Festival by Lawrence Coates
The Blossom Festival is a richly panoramic chronicle of rural life in the Santa Clara Valley during the decades before World War II. Against the lush backdrop of literally millions of fruit trees unfold the personal dramas of a fascinating cast of characters. This wonderful and leisurely read is an honest rendering of the complex relationships between parents and children in the changing context of a rich region of California that is leaving behind its agricultural past to become Silicon Valley.

The Bohemian Murders by Dianne Day
Accepting a temporary position as a lighthouse keeper in the bohemian beach community of Carmel-by-the-Sea, Fremont Jones tries to find the identity of a dead woman who washes up on shore while embarking on a love affair.

Bone by Fae Myenne Ng
Set in San Francisco's Chinatown, a novel of family ties chronicles the Leongs--a Chinese-American family caught between the traditions of their ancestry and the realities of life in America.

Bright Web in the Darkness by Alexander Saxton
Set in the San Francisco Bay area during World War II, Bright Web in the Darkness is a novel that illuminates the role of women workers during the war and the efforts of African Americans to achieve regular standing as union members. The central characters are two young women - one black, one white - who become friends in a welding class and qualify for the shipyard jobs opening to women as male workers are drafted.

Calico Palace by Gwen Bristow
California in the year before the Gold Rush provides the setting for this novel which centers on the colorful characters who journeyed west seeking adventure or refuge.

California Dons by Ralph Milliken
A novel, "carefully based on the personal recollections of Señor Don Estolano Larios," which tells of the childhood and young manhood of a Mexican in California in the mission days.

California Gold by John Jakes
In 1886, eighteen-year-old Mack Chance journeys from Pennsylvania to California to make a new life for himself, finding fortune, love, and power in Southern California, in a novel that spans from late-nineteenth-century San Francisco to 1921.

The Californians by Gertrude Atherton
Depicts life in California at the turn of the century as seen through the experiences of the shy, plain daughter of a Spanish grandee and the vivacious, beautiful daughter of a San Francisco entrepreneur.

The Californios by Louis L'Amour
Spanish California provides the background for this poignant portrayal of an Irish family's efforts to protect its Malibu ranch.

China Boy by Gus Lee
An American-born son of an aristocratic Chinese family struggles with the uncertainties of growing up torn between two cultures in a tough San Francisco neighborhood during the 1950s.

The Climate of the Country by Marnie Mueller
The stories of the Japanese Americans interred at the Tule Lake Relocation Center during the second World War are told by Denton Jordan, a conscientious objector who both lives and works in the camp.

Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
Raised in the British colony of Valparaiso, Chile, after being abandoned as a baby, a pregnant Eliza follows her lover, Joaquin Andieta, to California at the height of the Gold Rush and finds adventure and adversity on her road to independence and love.

The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West
Hollywood of the 1930s and the collapse of the American dream are seen through the eyes of a refined, educated set designer and an inarticulate bookkeeper from Iowa.

Down to a Soundless Sea by Thomas Steinbeck
Drawing on the culture and history of northern California, a collection of short fiction captures a world in which nature has a profound influence on the sailors, immigrants, ranchers, and others who dwell on the edge of a frontier.

Eye of the Bear by Naida West
This is a compelling tale of pre-gold-rush California, depicting the conflict among the Native Americans, the Spanish/Mexican secular rulers, and the religious zealots of the early California Missions.

Ghost Woman by Lawrence Thornton
Converted to Catholicism by a well-meaning priest, native American woman Soledad settles into a white community in Santa Barbara, California, in the 1800s and encounters friendship and betrayal.

Gold by Stewart E. White
Four men form a partnership as they come through the Panama Canal on their way to the Gold Rush, and they support each other through their gains and their losses in the fields. (Part 1 of the California Trilogy, along with The Gray Dawn, and The Rose Dawn)

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Depicts the hardships and suffering endured by the Joads as they journey from Oklahoma to California during the Depression.

The Gringo Amigo by Gary McCarthy
In the violent days following the California gold rush, Irish immigrant Michael Callahan must go to the aid of Joaquin Murieta, the Robin Hood of California who saved his life years before and who is the target of bounty hunters.

Hollywood by Gore Vidal
Follows the career of Caroline Sanford, a brilliant and beautiful newspaper publisher who leaves Washington to become a Hollywood producer and movie star.

The Human Comedy by William Saroyan
Members of the Macauley family find their peaceful existence in rural California greatly changed in the early months of 1942.

The Immigrants by Howard Fast
A multigeneration saga of California focuses on the life of Dan Lavette who, born in a railroad worker's boxcar, becomes a self-made shipping tycoon.

Immortal Wife by Irving Stone
Chronicles the indestructible marraige of John C. Fremont and his strong willed wife, who helped aid him in his great accomplishments.

The Indian Lover by Garth Murphy
Journeying to 1840s California, young Bill Marshall witnesses the tragic experiences of the California Indians and their treatment by Americans after Spain gives control of the territory to Mexico.

The Inland Sea by Steven Varni
Deciding to get a new perspective on life, Vincent Torno moves away from his protective ItalianAmerican family in California to seek a new life in the Midwest in order to see the world through his own eyes.

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
A Chinese immigrant who is convinced she is dying threatens to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths, thus prompting a series of comic misunderstandings.

The Legend of Fire Horse Woman by Jeanne W. Houston
An epic novel of courage, war, family, prejudice, and love traces the life of Sayo, who was born under the disastrous sign of the Fire Horse, as she, years after coming to America for an arranged marriage, is imprisoned with her family in a Japanese internment camp, during World War II, where all of their lives are forever changed.

Love Awakens the Heart by Lori Wick
This volume combines the Californians series of Whatever Tomorrow Brings and As Time Goes By. Set in San Francisco in the 1870s - just after the gold rush years - Lori Wick's The Californians brings a fabled era to life. Whatever Tomorrow Brings begins with the Donovan family stepping off a clipper ship for a holiday from their missionary post in Hawaii. Tragedy meets them instead, and twenty-year-old Kaitlin must hold her family together in an unfamiliar land. The second part of the saga, As Time Goes By, turns to another branch of the family, the Taylors. Young Jeff Taylor has waited five years for a chance to apologize to Bobbie Bradford in person. Can their friendship be restored after his heartbreaking betrayal so long ago? Historically accurate and brimming with positive values, this series entertains readers with uplifting stories of life and love, faith and courage in the boomtown West.

The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte
"Death were by no means uncommon in Roaring Camp, but a birth was new thing. People had been dismissed from the camp effectively, finally, and with no possibility of return; but this was the first time that anybody had been introduced." It was Stumpy, as self-appointed godfather, who decided on the name of Cherokee Sal's baby and Stumpy who took up a collection for the mite. A silver tobacco-box, a doubloon, a navy revolver, a sling shot, a golden spur and a pair of surgeon's shears were among the gifts laid at this young fellow's feet. But his greatest gift was surely in the name his well-wisher had laid on him: Thomas Luck.

Mendocino by Judith Greber
The lives, fortunes, triumphs, tragedies, dreams, and loves of seven generations of a Mendocino, California, family, is set against the growth and changes of their hometown, from 1845 to the present.

The Octopus by Frank Norris
Nineteenth-century California wheat farmers wage a fierce battle against the rapid expansion into their fertile lands of the nation's railroads.

Picture Bride by Yoshiko Uchida
Hana travels to America to escape the arranged marriages her sisters experienced in pre-World War II Japan, but the young businessman to whom she has corresponded turns out to be a middle-aged man who exaggerated his success.

Ramona by Helen H. Jackson
The absurdity and tragedy of prejudice is illustrated in this tale of a Spanish-American girl and her love for an Indian.

Raveled Ends of Sky by Linda Sandifer
Leaving the comforts of her affluent home in Boston, Nancy Maguire joins a group heading West in the hopes of reaching California and starting a horse ranch, but her independent nature causes problems and forces her to face great challenges all alone.

Santa Cat: Behind the Lace Curtains by Margaret Koch
Santa Cat, located at one end of Monterey Bay, also has rum-running, adultery, fraternal orders that would rather play cards than march, houses of ill-repute, sexism and a variety of other shenanigans. In stories more truthful than the history books, Margaret Koch gently and artfully shows us what was really going on behind those lace curtains, as this collection of characters tries to become a real community.

Sierra by Richard S. Wheeler
Ulysses McQueen leaves his pregnant wife to search for gold at the same time ex-soldier Stephen Jarvis begins his journey to the West coast, and the paths of the two finally cross in California, by which time they are both changed men.

Sister Noon by Karen Joy Fowler
A mystery set during the Gilded Age in turn-of-the-century San Francisco chronicles Lizzie Hayes's rebellious odyssey away from the pretensions of the city's social elite and her journey toward liberation and passion, with the help of Mary Ellen Pleasant.

Snow Mountain Passage by James D. Houston
The hardships, tragedy, and devastating starvation that confronted the Donner party, which became trapped by winter snows in the Sierra Nevadas before they can make their way into California, are seen through the eyes of James Frazier Reed and his eight-year-old daughter, Patty.

Sorensen Hill by Irene L. Sharp
"A true story about the only miner who never packed a gun."

Thousand Pieces of Gold by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
Chronicles the life of Lalu Nathoy, a young Chinese girl--sold as a slave and brought to America--where, later, as Polly Bemis she struggles and survives as a pioneer in the West.

A Thousand Wings by T. C. Huo
Recalling the work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a debut novel by an Asian-American author follows a gay cook from his native, war-torn Laos to internment in Thailand to San Francisco, where he falls in love.

Trail of the Tattered Star by Cliff Farrell
If California went with the secessionists, the North could lose the War Between the States -- and Mike McLish knew it. There was a big force of Confederates gathered at El Paso. All they needed was a leader and money to buy transport west. And the money was on the way when their leader left San Francisco by Butterfield Stage. Mike traveled on that same stage, along with two beautiful girls, a professional gunslinger, and a spy who could be working both sides against the middle.

When the Emperor was Divine by Julie Otsuka
A story told from five different points of view--a mother receiving the evacuation order, her daughter on the train ride to the camp, the son in the desert internment camp, the family's return home, and the final release of the father after years in captivity--chronicles the experiences of Japanese Americans caught up in the nightmare of the World War II internment camps.

Wings of Destiny by Catherine Lanigan
The descendent of a founding San Francisco family recounts the story of her grandfather, a man whose greed helped shape West Coast history, including such infamous chapters as white slavery, until his downfall in the great 1906 earthquake.