Three women of the same blood, each on a separate path to danger.Lola La Fontaine forfeits riches and status in Paris, determined to fulfill her dream to become a cabaret performer. Overcoming heartbreak and peril, she travels to the United States where she enjoys the success she craves. She believes her life is complete until she learns a shocking secret that drives her to return to Paris and follow a life-threatening path.Rita O'Reilly, Lola's daughter, believes she had been abandoned by her parents and at 12 years old she is penniless and alone. Headstrong, she escapes the clutches of an orphanage and sets out on a dangerous cross-country journey where she is forced to live among hostile Indians, taken advantage of by a charlatan and puts her life in grave danger when she naively travels the damp, dark streets of San Francisco's Barbary Coast, a sanctuary for the depraved and where every form of loathsome behavior thrives.Mimi La Fontaine, Lola's daughter, born in Paris, lives with her grandfather Émile La Fontaine, who, for selfish reasons tell Mimi that her mother Lola died in childbirth. With a guilty heart, he provides Mimi with a lifestyle befitting the granddaughter of a rich aristocrat and allows her free reign to do anything she pleases. Mimi grows to be narcissistic, deceitful and ambitious. She is a woman who will do anything to satisfy her desires, no matter how serious the consequences.A determined mother and two headstrong daughters cannot escape their destinies. How far will they go to survive?