"This town has stories," Jo's mother said. "You're the one to tell them." Now her mother is gone, and Jo blames herself. In the Gilded Age boomtown of Astoria, Oregon, she sets out to prove herself as a girl reporter. Following the trail of a missing maid, she finds her newspaper's publisher dead. Left in charge of the paper, she discovers danger is a lot closer than she thinks.

In present-day Astoria, Olivia is running from her failures. The more she tries to control her life, the more it gets away from her. Now she's got a bookshop she never wanted and an offer that will turn the town against her. Jo's unfinished Gilded Age story could be the one thing she gets right, if only she can make the pieces fit. Is Jo's secret the key to her redemption?