Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1990. dj. Hardcover first edition - A novel of the birth of California through the experiences of a young woman who was widowed on the trek overland in the early 1840s, and wound up at Sutter's Fort in Sacramento at a time when California was still -but not for much longer - a province of Mexico. Map frontispiece. While Holland has written many historical novels, this is her first one to be set in America. Author's note. 320 pp. ISBN: 0-395488869.