When the village of Sinaloa is destroyed by a raging storm, the only chance the remaining villagers have for survival is for the men to become soldiers and take their families 1500 miles north to the unsettled land of California.This is how Felipe, the son of a simple farmer, is betrothed to Petra, the richest girl in Sinaloa. It will be a marriage of convenience, not of love, as they travel the dangerous Camino Real to a new world filled with beauty and brutality. Along the way, a marriage of convenience might possibly turn into love--If only they can survive.