The best-selling book by The Alchemist author and global literary sensation Paulo Coelho. Maria travels to Geneva after a chance encounter in Rio, where she hopes to achieve fame and money, but instead finds employment as a prostitute on the streets. In Geneva, Maria becomes increasingly disengaged from romantic relationships while also being fascinated by sex. Maria eventually encounters an attractive young painter, who puts her hopeless perspective on love to the test. Maria must decide whether to embark on this journey of self-discovery and follow the dark path of "sexual pleasure for its own sake" or risk everything to uncover her own "inner light" and the prospect of sacred sex, or sex performed in the context of love.