My first westerner book. 
 It's 1849, the Californian Gold rush Era. 
 Leah Westfall always had the ability to sense gold. Living a happy life with her family, with her papa and mama who love her and know her worth. Everything changes when one day when she is returning home from school, she hears two gunshots. Arriving at her home, she finds her father and mother murdered. And the murderer also took the bags of gold dust which was kept hidden in the floor boards. She is all alone. Her parents dead. Her Best friend Jefferson gone in search of his fortune to California. But before leaving Jeff asks her to come with him, but she is reluctant to leave her home. Her estranged Uncle Hiram arrives, her father's brother. A lawyer. Telling her that her father left the property in his name and he is her guardian now. And things becomes worse when she realizes that her uncle knows her secret. That she can sense gold anywhere. And that he is the one who murdered her parents and took the gold dust. He has big plans for her but what? She doesn't know. So she makes up her mind to runaway and catch up to Jeff and go to California, away from her uncle. To find her own gold. Thus her journey starts. She cuts her hair short and dresses as a boy to save herself from prying eyes and from the people who knows her and will be searching for a girl not a boy. I was relieved that she is not dressed up as a boy the whole book. 
 She meets great people along the way who help her. 
 The journey is torturous and full of deaths. You name it. Bandits and diseases like cholera and measles. But the author introduces lots of side characters about whom I loved reading and knowing about them. I was surprised by a few deaths. Didn't expect them. The romance was not there at all. It was very light. There is room for more romance in the next book I think. 
 This book was so amazing. I loved reading about everything from the oxen to carts and landscape. The writing was so beautiful. You could just picture it in front of your eyes. 
 The only minus was that, this is a trilogy so the first was only based on the whole journey it took to reach California. So there were not much digging and finding gold. Lets see what happens in the next trilogy. And the cover is just so gorgeous. 
 Can't wait to read the sequel.