The childhood of twenty-five-year-old, Avery James has been a series of disappointments. At the institution where her mother abandoned her, and later in foster homes, she develops the hard shell that will protect her from caring for people who always seem to disappear just when she begins to wish they would stay. After a stab at college in Albuquerque, she ends up in Santa Fe, working for a smart caterer. At a party in the home of a wealthy art dealer, she stumbles upon the portrait of a woman who is the mirror image of herself, right down to her most distinguishing feature - her different-coloured eyes. Avery has found her mother, Isabel Colinas, an artist who died eight years earlier in a tragic accident. Searching for Isabel - in her work, in the stories of friends, rivals and lovers, in Isabel's own journal, and what's left of Querencia, the old miner's cabin that was her haven - Avery is drawn into complex relationships with the people who knew her mother. And the unexpected reappearance of the boy Avery loved in school further complicates matters. As she explores her mother's artistic heritage, her grandmother's skills as a curandera or healer, and her own talent for cooking, Avery finds that her discoveries about Isabel reveal not only the secrets of the past, but the shape of her own future.