Pastora

Pastora by Barnes, Joanna. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780380561841.

San Francisco was a wild and lawless town, and no place for a beautiful young woman alone with two children. But it was the Promised Land of boundless dreams, and the woman they called Pastora was a new breed whose spirit and daring raised and empire from the wilderness. Orphaned at fifteen, widowed at sixteen, she survived the perilous cross-country trek from St. Louis to California to become San Franciscos most celebrated Woman of Property. Society tried to snub her, but she made her own way to the top. Men tried to possess her, or break her, not understanding that behind her softness and allure burned ambitions she refused to sacrifice.