The story of Maria, a woman betrayed by his companion, David, when he steals a sack of money and flees, taking refuge in the island of Pico. Furious and determined to avenge herself, she proposes to an Police Inspector, Lucas, to chase and to find David. However, David, on a visit to the island of Faial, falls in love with a local, Marina. Maria and Lucas look for David in the Azores, they cross with Mariana in Faial and the three will discover David in his house of the mountain, at the top of the Peak. In a final confrontation, as in a Greek tragedy, Mary and David adjust the accounts that fate has traced to them.
In 1917 Burma (now Myanmar), a British diplomat is set to marry his fiancée, but after a sudden panic, escapes to Singapore, sending her on what evolves into a chase across Asia.
Carolina, an aging local grande dame who works at a crossing point on the titular river, marries another late-in-life character, the dredging-boat operator Antonio. Not long after their union, she becomes intensely jealous of Antonio's fondness for their winsome goddaughter, Joana, and insinuates herself into a relationship brewing between Joana and a mystical gypsy gold salesman. Soon, tempers are flaring, mystical secrets are being revealed and death is hovering over the central characters.
