In the summer of 1980, Annie, fresh out of graduate school, escapes a doomed engagement by fleeing to the Costa del Sol in Spain. The young traveler is seduced by the striking landscape and the shimmering sea, but not as profoundly as she was by Francisco, a local musician with a complicated past and a troubled soul. Her adventures propel her into adulthood and a life teased with what might have been.

Twenty-six years later, Annie's teenage daughter Marielle, curious about her mother's stories, searches for Francisco while on a backpacking trip through Spain. When Marielle's search is...