The gay 1890s aren't always. Gay that is. Sometimes life is dangerous, especially if you're next on someone's murder list. In 1896, there aren't many career choices for a young lady. China Bohannon has fled one bad situation, and is looking to start her life over as a strong, independent woman in the wild and woolly town of Spokane, Washington. Convincing Gratton Doyle to take her seriously as a bookkeeper is hard enough, and when it comes to working as an investigator in the Doyle & Howe Detective Agency, it's well-nigh impossible. But what if China is able to solve a murder case no one, including the police, wants to take on, that of a young girl found dead, her body thrown in the river? maybe Gratton will hire her then. But first, China has to avoid becoming the murderer's next victim.
Border Patrol agent Lily Turnbow is fighting a terrorist for her life when everything around her dissolves into a maelstrom of light and thunder. Awakening one hundred years later, she finds a ruined world in which bands of mutants are at war with normal humans, and discovers she is as changed as her surroundings. Resurrected into a society only now beginning to recover from the Event that almost wiped out humanity, she has become a Cross-up, acquiring magical powers she never had before. Driven by a bewildering set of circumstances, she uses these powers for the good of the O\'Quinn clan, a sword and horse society who have, against their better judgment, taken her in. But with few exceptions these people are not as appreciative of her help as one might expect. Even after killing one of her \"own kind,\" the serial killer Philip Barnes-a Cross-up known in this time as Screenmaster-the O\'Quinns view her with fear and suspicion. With the exception of O\'Quinn cousin Nate Quick who is her most vocal advocate, the clan can\'t wait to get rid of her. Sent before the clan elders, her alternatives are banishment into a lonely, friendless world where no one trusts anybody-or death. But Lily isn\'t willing to die--again.
Boothenay Irons is a most unusual gunsmith who is accustomed to the mysterious power within the antique guns in which she deals. That power is a catalyst, able to carry her into the past. What she isn\'t prepared for is a time-traveler from the future named Teagun Dill in need of her expertise. Dill kidnaps her and thrusts her forward in time. He needs her help to fight an outlaw gang who has taken over the Dill family\'s Crossroad Hotel. His promise to help her return to her own time causes her to consider her plight as well as his. Stranded and angry, unable to utilize her own power, Boothenay finds she must help create a future, instead of relive the past.
Boothenay Irons possesses a mysterious power that allows her to go back in time and experience the history held within an antique gun. This time it's a 1911 Colt .45 Automatic and it has a mysterious power of its own. When Boothenay's fiance, Caleb, picked up the gun he immediately vanished and found himself in the midst of World War I. His only chance to return to the modern world is through Boothenay's extraordinary power. She must go back to 1911, find Caleb and bring him back. Boothenay is escorted back to 1911 by a mysterious old man whose power is equal to her own, but she is suspicious of the man and tries to solve the mystery about him while looking for Caleb.
