Purple Like the West — Virginia Carmichael

Margaret Gilbert, a railroad executive's daughter, is a pampered princess of San Francisco's wealthy elite. She chafes under the expectation that she will marry for status and dreams of independence. When she joins the local Ladies' Aid Society, she's horrified by the treatment of the Chinese immigrant laborers. Vowing to expose the abuse, she begins to investigate the complicated system of slave labor provided to the railroads, but no one will listen to a woman like her. When she meets Ezra Pendleton, heir to a newspaper empire, she concocts a plan to tell the world- without incurring the wrath of her father. Ezra is the perfect cover. She'll make her family happy by feigning interest in a very eligible bachelor, become an undercover reporter, and keep her identity a secret. At least, that was the idea. Margaret starts to wonder if Ezra will turn out to be her plan's fatal flaw. He is not the sort of man you can string along with flattery. He's smart, wary, and is hiding a secret of his own. As the city falters under the stress of the Chinese mobs, the situation turns more dangerous than they could have imagined. Racial tensions in the city hit a breaking point and arson hits close to home. By the time there is an outbreak of the plague in Chinatown, it seems as if all the darkest parts of the city will be revealed at once. Margaret and Ezra are thrown together in a common cause, but will their secrets destroy the love that is growing between them? A story of faith, honor, and forgiveness. This is the second book in the Colors of Faith, a Christian historical romance series by Virginia Carmichael. The first, All the Blue of Heaven, was published February 2013.