Carolina Adams has an intense interest in the new technology of railroads. When her father hires a new tutor, James Baldwin, who shares the same interests, Carolina and James begin to have unexpected feelings for each other.

Carolina and James Baldwin's already strained marriage suffers even more when the upper-class couple moves from Baltimore to a small rural town in the Allegheny Mountains where James is to supervise the building of a tunnel for the B & O Railroad amid severe weather and escalating tensions with the Irish railroad workers.

The Civil War has ended, and the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads are locked in a high-stakes competition to link the eastern states with their western counterparts. Jordana Baldwin's writing catches the attention of an eastern newspaper, and she takes on the guise of a man to report on the progress of the rail line...and to spy for the Central Pacific. She continues to correspond with Captain Rich O'Brian, who now works for the Union Pacific....

When her mother dies, Corrie Bell Hollister is left with four younger siblings to care for. Hoping to find her uncle, she arrives in Gold Rush territory determined to be strong and make her own way. But her long-lost father's so-called land of promise is a dangerous place, and she has never felt so alone.

Allison and Logan Macintyre's marriage had promised a happy future for them and the Stonewycke estate. Yet they soon discover it is only the beginning of an ongoing journey. Shortly before the outbreak of World War II, Allison and Logan's relationship has fallen on a period of disenchantment. Logan, bounding from job to job, finally gets involved in wartime espionage for the Britishwithout Allison's knowledge. Separated for long periods of time,...

Anna Yevnovana Burenin, a young peasant girl, brings her faith to her new work in a prince's palace in St. Petersburg where it has a transforming effect on the spoiled Princess Katrina.