Bella Montoya, a shy New Mexican teenager, couldn't be a more unlikely hero of any adventure story. Yet, she begins to blossom page by page of this fact meets fantasy novel. Bullied by her schoolmates and mostly ignored by her family, she has no friends to speak of and spends her time reading or exploring her family ranch. Until she opens a photo album.

When she curiously enters a world hidden to humans, but filled with characters from long-told stores of Hispano culture and wisdom nearly forgotten, she discovers there's more to her than she thought. She emerges from scary and from charming adventures that give her a new sense of purpose: revive and preserve the folklore of her antepasados. The only obstacles standing in the way of her fulfilling the task the characters of the forest entrusted her with are her lack of confidence and her inability to trust herself.

Filled with age-old tales from generations of Hispano and Mexican American storytellers, Bella must confront wily foes such as el Serpiente, El Coco and la Llorona but count on her merry and wise allies, her Abuela and Tía, Jackalope Pierre and Trickster Tom Coyote, Don Cacahuate, Señor Vaquero, and many more.