In this passionate work, Alvaro Vargas Llosa makes the reader feel the beating heart of Francisca, the mestiza daughter of Pizarro, product of a love between the conqueror and the Inca princess Inés Huaylas. Vargas Llosa helps to uncover what Francisca was feeling on the inside while on the outside significant events were happening in the history of Modern Spain and the conquest of Peru: divisions within the native people, and confrontations between the conquerors.