Seventeen-year-old, Nina, discovers she has an ancient past that links her to the legendary Weeping Woman, La Llorona. That connection helps her overcome her battered and abusive past but the wrath of an Aztec high priest threatens to collide her modern day world as a mysterious stranger leads her into the perilous Paradise of Lost Souls.

Heart of the Jaguar is an empowering story filled with Mexican folklore immersed in the modern day life of a young girl living in the fictional border town of South Bay. The young heroine, Nina, discovers that she has a past that links her to La Llorona, and that strong connection helps her to overcome her battered childhood and the traumas that she had to endure while living with her abusive stepfather. Embedded in songs, poems, and stories, the Llorona—also known as the Weeping Woman—is an angry spirit who drowns innocent children playing near bodies of water.  Her fictional origin is revealed through flashbacks into the once supreme ancient Aztec civilization, bringing back to life that now extinct culture that fiercely ruled above other races at the time, including the fictional tribe of the Jaguar people. The novel is crafted into two separate plots that unite at the end of the story--in a battle-- at the paradise of lost souls.