Hugh McVey moves from Missouri to the agrarian town of Bidwell, Ohio. He invents a mechanical cabbage planter to ease the burden of famers, but an investor in town exploits his product, which fails to succeed. His next invention, a corn cutter, makes him a millionaire and transforms Bidwell into a center of manufacturing. McVey, perennially lonely and ruminative, meets Clara Butterworth, who attends college at nearby Ohio State and is perennially...

"On Prospect Hill, you can get nearly anything you want from the Fae--if you know how to ask and if you can pay the price. There is no magic on Prospect Hill--or anywhere else, for that matter. But just on the other side of the veil is the world of the Fae, and all their magic. Generations ago, the first farmers on Prospect Hill learned to bargain small trades to make their lives a little easier--a bit of glass to find something lost, a cup of milk...

"The Spinning Jenny was invented in 1770, and with that, a new era of manufacturing and industry changed lives everywhere within a generation. A world filled with unrest wrestles for control over this new world order: A mother's husband is killed in a work accident due to negligence; a young woman fights to fund her school for impoverished children; a well-intentioned young man unexpectedly inherits a failing business; one man ruthlessly protects...

The exploitation of Niagara Falls to generate electricity leads to a murder involving members of Buffalo's ruling class. The heroine is a high-society school teacher who investigates and through her eyes is seen the conflict between industrialists and environmentalists of the day. A first novel.

Henry Whittaker is a poor-born Englishman who makes a great fortune in the South American quinine trade, eventually becoming the richest man in Philadelphia. Born in 1800, Henry's daughter, Alma, inherits both his money and his brilliant mind, ultimately becoming a botanist of considerable gifts. As Alma's research takes her deeper into the mysteries of evolution, she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of...

"Charlie's dream of becoming a cobbler is threatened when his family moves to Manchester during the Industrial Revolution"--