After a tragedy separates her from her mother, Juana García leaves her small town in Mexico to find her father, who left his family two years earlier to find work in America and rise above the oppressive poverty of his country. Out of money and in need of someone to help her across the border, Juana meets Adelina Vasquez, a young woman who left her family in California to follow her lover to Mexico. Finding themselves -- in a Tijuana jail -- in desperate circumstances, they offer each other much needed material and spiritual support and ultimately become linked forever in the most unexpected of ways. <P> A stunning and poignant story of migration, loss, and discovery, in <I>Across a Hundred Mountains</i>, Reyna Grande puts a human face on the controversial issue of immigration, helping readers to better understand those who risk life and limb every day in pursuit of a better life.