Book 2 continues the adventures of Joanna Botticelli, the beautiful, young artist as she strives to make sense of the contradictions between her needs and the dictates of the society in which she lives. Unbearably stressed by her intense desire and love for Vincent Cooper, her married lover, she seeks to escape. She finds respite by fleeing San Francisco, Joanna lands with all of her ambition, art materials and illusions on the sunny beaches of tropical, west central Mexico. There, she unwittingly succumbs to entanglements with men even more dangerous and compromising than those she was trying to escape from in San Francisco. She struggles to resolve her desperate quandries without 'buying the ranch' (dying) and her situation becomes truly unique.