Imagine a happy family celebrating one September afternoon in 1879, out in the countryside on the banks of the Bloodsmore River in Pennsylvania, the upcoming wedding of one of their five daughters, all of marriageable age.

Suddenly, a dark silhouette blots out the sky, and Dreide, the youngest of the sisters, flees in a hot-air balloon that will take her far away…

This extraordinary event completely upends the life of the Zinn family and the fate of the girls, who will trade their peaceful existence as proper young ladies for a far less conventional and much more adventurous life: while one becomes a journalist, another ends up as an actress and lover of Mark Twain, and the others dedicate themselves to the world of science or other pursuits considered unfit for their social standing—until the family reunites many years later.