San Francisco gynecologist Kate Jamison has spent most of her life taking care of everybody else. Her marriage has been floundering for eons, and she can't seem to feel the parts of herself that she longs to connect to. Emotionally spent and besieged by migraines, she retreats to a remote area on Maui for an overdue vacation. There, on Seal Cove, she encounters a gateway to a foreign landscape that mirrors her deepest fears. Desperate to heal, she surrenders to a shape-shifting shaman who she fears is potentially dangerous, and encounters the non-ordinary worlds that challenge her deepest belief systems. With time and trust she awakens to her intuitive wisdom and innate healing abilities, and journeys into a profound, erotic love affair. Just as Kate is invoking her new life in paradise, a mainland tragedy demands that she return to a world that no longer holds meaning for her. She promises her lover she will return-and does-only to have her courage and her faith in the miraculous tested in ways she could never have imagined.