Dreams of Earth and Sky

A ranchero's daughter in 1845 California fights for her home in a sweeping historical romance of rebellious love, family loyalty, identity, and sacrifice.

California, 1845. Mexican rancheros reign, and while American ambitions threaten their future, the Ávila family's rancho, El Sueño, is for now a safe haven.

It's time for twenty-year-old Mariana Ávila, the strong-willed daughter of a wealthy ranchero, to accept tradition and marry. Though Ramón, her childhood sweetheart, is her best prospect, Mariana bristles against convention and aims to follow her own path. When foreign settlers and US forces encroach on the Californios, Mariana meets Irish immigrant Patrick Murphy and is suddenly caught between two admirers and two worlds about to collide. As everything Mariana knows collapses around her, she must navigate the twists of fate to come and the devastating price of American conquest that threatens more than her beloved El Sueño.

Set against the epic backdrop of a tumultuous moment in California's history, this is, at its heart, the intimate story of a young woman's fight to protect her family's legacy and search for love across an impossible divide.

(c) 2026 by Shirley Perez West, all rights reserved.

Shirley Perez West grew up on the San Francisco Peninsula among the remnants of California ranchos. After years as a journalist and a public relations professional, she dived into the historical archives to find the voices of the Mexican Californios, learn the story of her forebears, and write about this buried piece of the Western saga. Shirley holds a BA and an MS in journalism, and her work has appeared in the short-fiction anthologies Midnight in the Garden and Echoes and in the poetry collection Sheltering. A longtime Oregon resident, she divides her time between Portland and the coastal village of Manzanita, where she enjoys paddling for a women's dragon boat team.