I loved Nora, the lead character, a woman who prostitutes herself for a living in the Gold Rush era in San Francisco. It is very interesting how these women did not have a lot of choices back then, and how prostitution could be lucrative, especially if the woman is "classy" enough to work in a Parlor House, where the wealthy men went to enjoy the women's services. Nora starts out in the "Stalls", which is just a step up from the girls that walk the street. I imagined horse stalls, each girl had her own stall. It is also interesting to see so many hyprocrites, men who mouth off about the immorality of prostitutes and then sneaking to the stalls in the middle of the night to get a piece of the very action they just condemned. One guy even has the audacity to tell Nora that if she wasn't such a horrible person, he wouldn't never have been tempted, putting the blame for his sins entirely on Nora. Oh, and there is a good story, too! I learned so much about that world in addition to reading a mystery story where I really wasn't sure who "did it" until he was revealed.

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