Gathering the Indigo Maidens

Wealthy Southern California widow and Spanish Colonial art collector is entangled with art thieves and human traffickers who imprison a young Ecuadorian woman as a sex-slave in 2008. An epic tale of interwoven narratives that connects modern day art theft and sexual exploitation to the palpable triumphs and pathos of three historical indigo maidens: artist, Isabel Santiago from 1699 Quito; printing heiress, Maria de Rivera Calderon y Benavides from 1754 Mexico City; and social activist Modesta Avila from 1889 San Juan Capistrano. **** It's 2008 in a beachfront Mediterranean home overlooking the bay in Laguna Beach. Under the Southern California sun, wealthy widow and art collector Paloma Zubiondo's perfect world is shattered one morning when she receives a disturbing phone call on her private line. A young woman speaking in the Andean-Castilian of Paloma's childhood in Ecuador claims she is being held in a cage and forced into sexual slavery-and her captors will not release her until Paloma hands over her Immaculate Conception painting by Spanish Colonial Quito artist Isabel Santiago. Except that Paloma is absolutely certain that her painting is not stolen, and there was no artist named Isabel Santiago. And there are no sex slaves in Southern California. Right? Within days, everything Paloma thinks she knows will be called into question, and she will find herself thrust from a life of order and beauty into a seedy underworld of con artists, art thieves, human trafficking, and a cunning sociopath named Montserrat. It will take Paloma's fearless friend Jen, a heartbroken ex-police officer named Annette, and a mysterious young, indigenous, woman from Ecuador to draw Paloma out of her fortress on the bluff to confront the mysteries from her past as well as the crimes of the present. Gathering the Indigo Maidens, takes the reader on an exhilarating journey through time, languages, and cultures that leads ultimately to a place of wholeness and hope.