With their family home facing foreclosure, seventeen-year-old Clara Estby and her mother, Helga, need to raise a lot of money fast-no easy feat for two women in 1896. Helga wants to tackle the problem with her usual loud and flashy style, while Clara favours a less showy approach. Together they come up with a plan to walk the 4,600 miles from Mica Creek, Washington, to New York City-and if they can do it in only seven months, a publisher has agreed to give them $10,000. Based on the true story of the author's great-aunt and great-grandmother, this is a fast-paced historical adventure that sets the drama of Around the World in Eighty Days against an American backdrop during the time of the suffragist movement, the 1896 presidential campaign, and the changing perception of "a woman's place" in society. Ages 12 up Grades: 7 up AUTHOR: Of her debut novel, Carole Estby Dagg says, "Since Helga and Clara never published the book they had originally intended to write, I feel as if I have not won a victory for myself, but for them."