"To save their father's life, a brother and sister must journey across a land full of magical beings from Colombian folklore and find the most powerful and dangerous of them all--the Madremonte"--
Valentina wants to focus on drawing the real world around her and hopefully get into art school in Bogotá one day. Her Papi has spent his life studying Colombia's legendary creatures and searching for proof of their existence. When Papi hears that a patasola-- a vampire woman with one leg-- has been sighted in the Andes, Valentina and her younger brother Julián get dragged along on another magical creature hunt. When an earthquake hits, the children fall through the earth-- and find an alternate Colombia where all the legends are real! To get home, they will need to make a treacherous journey to reach this land's madremonte, mother and protector of the earth. She controls the only portal back to the human world-- and she absolutely hates humans. -- adapted from jacket