After her father's death, Sarah Rutledge returns from North Carolina to Nicaragua in an attempt to prevent the family's property from being expropriated by the Sandinista government. The novel begins with Sarah's childhood on the coffee farm where her British-American family has lived for almost a century. Natural disasters, civil conflicts, and political changes force her to ponder who belongs in Nicaragua, just where she belongs, to whom she belongs, and what belongs to her....