Chantley Armstrong, a white woman raised in an ashram in India, and Sam Johnson, a proud young black man, come across each other in Boulder, Colorado. The intense feelings aroused by the chance encounter suggest that they share a relationship from previous lives.

Chantley sees the world through the eyes of karma. "Everyone acts according to their karma," she says, "maybe even entire nations."

Deeply concerned with American injustice, racism and militarism, he asks, "What can you say about a country that starts its history with a slavery and a genocide? What kind of karma is that?"

Once sheltered but now on her own, Chantley struggles to adapt and gain courage, while Sam, deeply intellectual, strives to find his center.

Discovering that they may have been lovers at a plantation in South Carolina during the antebellum period, they journey through the South, visiting places and people connected to America's troubled past and uncertain present.

As they fall deeper in love, their travel exposes conflicts whose origins neither is able to explain. They locate their plantation near Charleston, South Carolina, but its exploration reveals a shocking truth about the real nature of their relationship-one that makes them question who they are, their deep-seated beliefs and the meaning of love.