A warm-hearted novel that explores the extraordinary consequences of emigration, the desire to find one’s own roots, and the persistence of family legends.

Luisa’s life began with a bang: Her mother Aza threw her out of the window of the hospital in Munich where she was born and then disappeared without a word. Only thanks to an Englishman named Fergus her life didn’t end the same day it began. Her father Paul, helpless and heartbroken, has to nevertheless get on with his life now that he has a baby to take care of. Why did Aza do it? Where did she go? Those are questions he doesn’t dare to ask. Only as a growing Luisa begins to show an interest in her mother’s story and a long lost letter from Aza turns up, Paul realises that he needs to understand what happened in order to get closure for himself and his daughter.

Their journey of discovery will take them to Brazil, via a small Bavarian village where more than a century ago a group of villagers took off for America. They ended up in Brazil where they recreated their Bavarian village in the jungle stone by stone. And it’s from there that many years later a young woman name Aza departed for Germany in search of her roots. Now Paul and Luisa are going back to this Brazilian-Bavarian village to find some answers –and maybe even Aza.