On a hot June day, Liliana, a brilliant, young woman of Native American, Hispanic and Anglo-Saxon heritage is irresistibly drawn to a cowboy despondently leaning on his truck on the side of the highway as she drives home to Grants. "Reflections of Love and Loathing" takes place in New Mexico, where Liliana loses her loving parents when she is five. Secret resources enable her abusive, alcoholic grandmother, Carla, to keep her; so Liliana is forced to live with the persistent stalking of a serial pedophile, Joe, who is her great-grandfather. When Terry sees her recklessly cross the highway to come to his aid, he begins the wild ride into Liliana's life. After meeting Carla and Joe, he has his doubts about being with Liliana, but soon he realizes that love binds him to her. After driving Terry to his destination in Texas, Liliana learns that Carla has accused her of killing Joe and flees in panic. She wakes to find herself broken and alone; her truck wrecked in a deep arroyo. Only her love for Terry gives her the strength to fight for survival in the flashflood that threatens to finish her off and only Terry's mysterious link to her allows him to find and rescue her. While she lies broken in the hospital, Terry learns of the perversions and misuse of power that maintained multigenerational sexual abuse that destroyed the lives of three generations of women and dominated Liliana's life with Carla. Then begins Liliana's true challenge. As her body heals, she will have to rise above the emotional damage caused by Carla and the nightmare mirror image of Joe that tempts her to drive Terry away rather than face her fears and believe that she is worthy of Terry's love. The most difficult challenge of all.
