The Sunset Dream — Catherine Gavin

The superb saga of the Estrada family, set in California in the century between the United States war with Mexico and the one of Pearl Harbor.

In 1866 Luis Estrada, a Spanish rancher, goes to war against the American invaders of California, while his brother Felipe collaborates with the conquerors and grows rich in the Gold Rush days of the new city of San Francisco.
The women of the family lead violent lives. Their sister Rosalie wrecks her peace by taking a Russian lover, and her illegitimate daughter Laura, an ambitious actress, elopes with a gambler and eventually becomes the mistress of the French Emperor.
In a later generation, Violet Estrada, working in the new movie industry, is involved in a drug and murder scandal which ruins her career.
It is Violet's daughter, Heidi Siegrist, who begins in 1941 a new and honorable chapter in the sunset dream of the Estrada's.