The Price of a Contract

When railroads met at Promontory Point, Utah, in 1869, the world changed. For the first time, trains spanned the continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, bringing the telegraph with them. Instant communication transformed that society much as the Internet would a future generation. Kate Sinclair is a fiercely independent woman during a time when women were deemed passive, even inconsequential. She boldly travels from New York to San Francisco on one of the first transcontinental railroads, where she meets Frank Ellsworth, a handsome stranger going west for a job with Western Union. Frank is hard to resist. Industrious and alluring. It is his responsibility to ensure Western Union remains the dominant telegraph company. The company faces stiff competition from ever-evolving technology and greedy industrialists bent on amassing wealth by any means necessary. As Kate and Frank fall in love, everything seems right, but when Frank hints at something lasting, he is met with resistance. Is Kate's life haunted by family secrets? Is she afraid that a commitment means loss of independence? The Price of a Contract is a story of love and mistakes during the tumultuous era of greed, political corruption, and inequality later coined the Gilded Age. The setting is a particular time period, but the issues of relationships, personal decisions, and business ethics are timeless.