PARADISE
"The dichotomy between the haves and have-nots has become extraordinarily pronounced in Mexico. You have people living in cardboard shacks practically next door to the most affluent people on the planet who are living in luxury.”
L.A. Times "Taking Baja South" By Reed Johnson, October 7, 2015
PARADISE tells the story of JAX RUIZ, an American-Mexican real-estate mogul in need of
redemption. When a Flint Michigan/Love Canal - like environmental disaster occurs on a
residential community property he owns, Jax Ruiz, a successful real estate mogul, becomes
the face of “American Corporate Greed" and the fall guy for someone else's crime. Although he
is innocent of any wrongdoing, Jax spends one year in jail. When he gets out, he is determined
to find out who set him up to take the fall.
When he tries to get back to work he is shut down everywhere he turns. Then a family emergency sends him to Mexico and right into the arms of a promising new endeavor: an exclusive residential resort community for the rich and famous on the Baja coast. JAX is confident this venture will be the key to the success and redemption he needs to turn his fortune around. There’s just one hitch: Mexican law prohibits foreigners from being the sole owners of land on the coastline. So, in order to make this dream project a reality, Jax and his brother and business partner, Peter, must enter into a partnership with his estranged Mexican family.
For more than six decades, Fern Zapata's family languished in poverty while embattled in a bitter
dispute to regain ownership of the beach-front land in Mexico, property that was stolen from her
ancestors. Her parents died fighting for this land and after they passed, Fern and her brother Raffi
took over the charge. Nothing will keep Fern from getting ownership of this land. And should the
machismo status quo (and that includes her brother Raffi ) try to interfere with her grand ideas…
they’ll be toast.
Thus Jax Ruiz's fate becomes entwined with the Zapata de Ruiz family’s land, the environmentalists desperately trying to preserve it, and the terrorists determined to destroy it all.
A one-hour night time drama, PARADISE is a sexy saga set in locales that soar from glamorous
to gritty, featuring intriguing, highly diverse characters embroiled in fraught-with-peril storylines
fueled by family secrets, rivalries, ambition, passion, greed, and corruption.
Where Jax Ruiz’s formally divided family meets, and vastly polarized lifestyles and cultures
entwine is where the drama of PARADISE begins