Inside her father's circus at the dawn of the twentieth century, a spirited Canadian girl fights for equality and the right to her inheritance. "This middle--grade novel is about an irrepressible girl thrust into challenging circumstances. Her great-aunt Ada has died and a committee of relatives is bent on vulturing Ephemia's education trust fund for themselves. Twelve-year-old Effy's only hope is to locate and dazzle her long lost poppa before time...

In 1906, mortified by her mother's suffragist activities that cause the family to move from New York City to Cape Light, fourteen-year-old Rose sees no value in her mother's feminist views until she tries to enter a horse riding competition open only to boys.