The modern story begins at the time when the world famous Pro-Am golf tournament is played at Pebble Beach, California. Rita Minetti, eighth generation Californian, is enmeshed in a mysterious burglary of her antique bookshop in Pebble Beach. The pivotal part of the burglary is the disappearance of family diaries, written in Spanish, by Clarita de Segovia, born in Alta California. Clarita, age fifteen, began writing a diary during her sequestered days before her marriage to a man she had never met. She continued writing dairies during a tumultuous time in California history. The American Conquest and The Gold Rush. Her granddaughter, Isabel, brings the story to the twentieth century by writing more about Clarita and her descendents in her own journals. An ambitious Monterey County Sheriff is eager to question Rita, her friends, and her family, while Rita believes she can solve the mystery by herself. She is torn between the quest of finding the diaries, protecting the family prestige, and pursuing her goal of selling Claritia's story to a television production company.