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.