The tumultuous 1906 earthquake makes up the backdrop for the historical fiction novel San Francisco by Marian Lindner. Anna O’Malley was born into a life of privilege, her father a renowned jeweller. However, she finds the middle upper class lifestyle stifling, and her mother’s insistence...

Lena is a gawky, nerdy teenager who can't wait to get to college and blossom, like her older sister Linda did. For now, though, she has to get through her eighteenth birthday with her father out of town. To make matters worse, she had a...