In Rain of Gold, Victor Villaseñor weaves the parallel stories of two families and two countries, bringing us the timeless romance between the volatile bootlegger who would become his father and the beautiful Lupe, his mother. These are men and women in whose lives the real and the fantastical exist side by side, and in whose hearts the spirit to survive is fueled by a family’s unconditional love.

This non-fiction saga is an all-American story of poverty, immigration, struggle, and success. It focuses on three generations of the Villaseñor family, their spiritual and cultural roots back in Mexico, their immigration to California, and their overcoming of poverty, prejudice, and economic exploitation.

A 20-year-old Chinese painter named Stephen is sent to his family's summer home in a Japanese coastal village to recover from a bout with tuberculosis. Here he is cared for by Matsu, a reticent housekeeper and a master gardener. Over the course of a remarkable year, Stephen learns Matsu's secret and gains not only physical strength, but also profound spiritual insight.

Matsu is a samurai of the soul, a man devoted to doing good and finding beauty in a cruel and arbitrary world, and Stephen is a noble student, learning to appreciate Matsu's generous and nurturing way of life and to love Matsu's soul-mate, gentle Sachi, a woman afflicted with leprosy.

Twelve-year-old Matt is left on his own in the Maine wilderness while his father leaves to bring the rest of the family to their new settlement. When he befriends Attean, an Indian chief's grandson, he is invited to join the Beaver tribe and move north. Should Matt abandon his hopes of ever seeing his family again and go on to a new life?

Although he faces responsibility bravely, Matt is more than a little apprehensive when his father leaves him alone to guard their new cabin in the wilderness. When a renegade white stranger steals his gun, Matt realizes he has no way to shoot game or to protect himself. When Matt meets Attean, a boy in the Beaver clan, he begins to better understand their way of life and their growing problem in adapting to the white man and the changing frontier.

Elizabeth George Speare’s survival story is filled with wonderful detail about living in the wilderness and the relationships that formed between settlers and natives in the 1700s.