Hong Kong 1941 and the streets are filled with Japanese soldiers. Two young people are brought together then separated by terrible cruelty. Fifteen-year-old Kate lives a rarefied life of wealth and privilege in the pre-war Hong Kong expatriate community but when the Japanese invade she's interned in squalid Stanley Camp with her parents. Enduring cramped conditions humiliation disease and starvation Kate befriends seventeen-year-old Charles who is half Chinese and they give their hearts to each other under the orchid tree. Meanwhile forty miles away in Portuguese Macau thirteen-year-old Sofia's suspicions are aroused when her father invites a Japanese family to dinner an event which leads to a breach between Sofia and her controlling half-brother Leo. In December 1948 adult Kate returns to Hong Kong determined to put the past behind her. Sofia dreams of leaving Macau and starting a new life and she won't let anyone not even Leo stop her. A young Englishman James becomes the link between Kate and Sofia. The communist-nationalist struggle in China spills over into the colony catapulting the protagonists into the turmoil with disastrous consequences.
