A woman for the ages. A saga for all time. She was beautiful and innocent until she was led astray by the dark desires that rule men's hearts. You will never forget Lily-as a child watching her mother die in want...as an orphan struggling to protect her reckless brother...as a teenager discovering the power of desire...as a fear-filled young girl learning to sell her body in the most elegant brothel in the wickedest city on earth...as a captivating beauty whom men would pay any price to possess...as a mother desperately trying to keep the truth from her daughter...as a woman forced by love to return to the city of her shame and seek to conquer it.. And you will never forget Lily's story-as it moves from the Hell's Kitchen squalor and Fifth Avenue splendor of old New York to the rolling decks of a great clipper ship to the brawling streets and magnificent Nob Hill mansions of San Francisco, through storm and earthquake and fire in a breathless saga of love, intrigue and illicit passion.