Allegiance To a Dead Man — Sara M. Harvey

When Lauren visits the grave of the eccentric self-proclaimed emperor of the United States and protector of Mexico, Joshua Norton, she makes an impulsive pledge to the old man's ghost. The next thing she knows, she has been recruited by His Imperial Highness in a campaign to rename the Bay Bridge The Emperor Norton I Memorial Bay Bridge like it was supposed to have been in his lifetime. In a story that weaves in and out of reality and between the twenty-first century and the nineteenth, Lauren must find the courage and strength within herself to fulfill her allegiance to a dead man.