Maria Collins, a 60-year-old Mexican-American queer punk firecracker, is on a mission to destroy the family book, Querida, that has become the centerpiece of her 100-year-old megalomaniac father’s global religious empire. The book, rumored to rewrite itself every time it’s opened, is highly addictive. By getting rid of it, she’ll bring her father’s dominion crashing down—or at least hurt him back for wreaking havoc on the world.

Maria sets events in motion that may unexpectedly lead her to Fritz, her long-ago girlfriend and one true love who vanished 40 years ago. However, to find Fritz, Maria may have to join her father on a quest that will take her across Mexico, into war-torn and recently independent Texas, and possibly all the way to the Caribbean. Through the twisty journey, she will have to come to terms with her hatred of her father, her love for Fritz, and this supposedly magical book her great-grandmother wrote.