Burned out from work and a recent breakup, Andie Branson, a 38-year-old commercial artist in a conservative town in the American South, has a shocking and unexpected religious experience, kundalini rising, the physical manifestation of tantric enlightenment. Andie's struggle to regain control of her mind and body is complicated by a too close connection with her glamorous world-wandering parents, especially her magnetically attractive father, and by an assignment working closely with a bigoted U.S. senator, the man who, for her, personifies evil. Her story ranges from the elegant little golf town of Pinehurst, North Carolina, to the raucous and shadowy byways of pre-Katrina New Orleans, with pauses in India, Ecuador, and other exotic locations. Andie finds her redemption finally through ecstatic religious ritual, the mysterious healing properties of water, and by claiming and steering the power that has erupted within her.