When ten-year-old Loren is kidnapped at a Manhattan planetarium from Mala, his young adoptive aunt, he believes he has been mistaken for another child. But his abductor is his great-uncle, a wealthy former gambler, who lives in a converted hotel in the desert surrounded by a host of idiosyncratic guests, each in search of the lost treasures of the universe.
Distraught over Loren's disappearance, Mala quits college and enlists in the Navy at the height of the Vietnam War. Working as an X-ray technician on a hospital ship in the South Pacific she meets a wounded navigator and falls in love. Yet, just as she opens her heart, he too vanishes.
And so begins an epic tale of love and destiny, as we follow the paths of Mala and Loren in their restless seach for each other. From Las Vegas to the South Pacific and beyond, this is a magical and profound story that is unlike anything you have ever read.
