Aurora Dawn Merryweather is born to pursue mankind's quest for flight.

The daughter of Victorian balloonists, she is trained from the cradle in aeronautics. By age nine, she is assisting her mother in balloon flights. By age fourteen, she is piloting her own balloon. She makes her debut at the Balloonatics Ball held at the Columbian Exposition and poses for famed illustrator Charles Dana Gibson.

But danger is also part of Aurora's inheritance. She faces these dangers with her father's star apprentice, Will Nolan, a streetwise orphan who is secretly in love with her. But can he win her heart, or will he become her aeronautical archrival?

By the time Aurora is eighteen, two other young men have crossed her path. Dashing newspaperman John Dyer Denning stands shoulder to shoulder with her when they face death in a runaway balloon.

 And then there is the dangerously fascinating Lucas Vanderwolf, the ruthless "young wolf" of his robber baron family. He has designs on the Merryweathers' business, their patents, and their beautiful daughter. Will Aurora deliver herself into Vanderwolf's gilded cage to save her parents' life's work? Or can she find a way to rescue them—and herself—from the young wolf and keep her family's balloons flying free?