Sara Reeves is a student of Spanish Literature at Oxford. Captivated by the legend of “Carmen” and all things related to Andalusia, much of her childhood was spent at Rio Tinto, near Huelva, where a wealthy uncle had interests in the mines. Servants, possessions, luxury and a suitor of her own status are the extent of Sara’s world; a world as rich in objects as it is devoid of emotion. She dreams of writing, of adventure, of meeting tobacco vendors like Carmen, of walking the streets of southern Spain intoxicated by the scent of orange blossom. And so, in an act worthy of her literary heroines, she commits the folly of running off to Andalusia in search of emotion, without a word to her family. Her first days there are a disappointment, however. She hasn’t sighted even one bandolero and she was robbed of all her belongings at a tavern in a remote mountain village called Arazana. Since the Civil Guard have been patrolling the region, the bandits have been reduced to a shadow of their former glory and Sara, who has heard the colourful stories of El Tempranillo, feels let down. Where are all the fierce, dashing highwaymen? But Andalusia gradually casts it spell over Sara and she soon begins to feel comfortable in Arazana. She gets to know the townsfolk, the school mistress, the tavern keeper, the blacksmith, the journalist... until one day she receives a visit from her uncle, Richard Thomas, who has come to escort her back to England. Just when Sara reluctantly accedes to returning home, she and her uncle are kidnapped by a group of bandits lead by Carranza, an aging bandolero who is conscious of the times changing too fast for him. A bandit of the old school. Miguel, a newly-arrived lieutenant of the Civil Guard, has been ordered to recover Sara. This he does, but Carranza and his men manage to get away and Richard Thomas is killed in the skirmish. No-one is sure who the culprit is, so Sara resolves to stay on a few more days in order to clarify the matter. Miguel promises to help her. An irrepressible attraction begins to emerge between them. It is a paradox of fate that Sara came in search of wild bandits and ends up falling in love with a lieutenant obsessed with trapping them. In the village we also meet the humble Pérez family, who work for the wealthy landowners, the Montoro’s. Sara will get a taste of life on this Andalusian estate – with all its lies, ambition, rivalry and family secrets – headed by the powerful, though noble, Don Germán Montoro, and his despotic son, Alvaro. The young Roberto Pérez will also fall in love with the English girl, putting Sara in a terrible dilemma: she thinks she loves the lieutenant but can’t help feeling an overwhelming passion for the humble labourer. We will also be witness to the daily life of an Andalusian village at the end of the 19th century. The tavern, the town wash house, the square... these are some of the more emblematic settings in which the large and small stories of the townsfolk unfold. Each with their own problems, desires and ways of life in a turbulent time of change. But the core story of “Bandolera” revolves around Sara and Miguel. Theirs is a love fraught with peril, as Sara will become a bandit herself and fight beside Carranza to help the needy. Like a female “Robin Hood”, Sara will fight against the abuses of the powerful landowners, many of them protected by the Civil Guard in an operation called “La Mano Negra”, conceived to discredit the labourers. For the townsfolk and Miguel, though, she will continue to be a young foreigner working as a local journalist, because no-one ever suspects that she is actually the bandit who has sided with the peasants. The very idea would never even cross anyone’s mind, among other things because she’s a woman. And Miguel is totally unaware that the bandit he is trying to catch is in fact the woman he is madly in love with.