Welcome to Litsy!

Christina, a young Portuguese woman reared in the civility and elegance of seventeenth-century Europe, travels to newborn and untamed Brazil, betrothed to a cousin she has never met. From the time Christina sets foot on that strange New World soil, an aura of doom envelopes her. The awesomeness of the natural beauty, the mysterious furtiveness of the native Indians, the cruelty of slavery, and the animal-like avarice of her fellow whites, the conquerors and colonists, all unite to overwhelm her sense of self-respect and well being. She soon finds that the paradise where her fiancé's family resides, Lagoa Serena, is actually a living hell; a commune of stoical, grudge-worn women and jungle-leathery, unkempt men whose sole ambition seems to be finding, collecting, and hoarding gold. Her fiancé, Tiago, is not the man of her dreams but a character in her nightmares. He is a child of adventure and tropical fervor, cooled under a brow that furrows a secret that, when discovered, all but breaks Christina's will.