Isabella McMillan is young, beautiful, and smart. A much-loved daughter with her future mapped out and secure. She knows what is expected of her - Melbourne in 1956 has a box just the right shape for a Chinese-Australian lawyer-to-be. And yet ...

When she meets a university lecturer named Alexander, he seems to offer her freedom from the claustrophobic privilege of her life and convinces her to come away with him. Only in Oxford, England, is the real man revealed. As Issie grapples with her fading dreams and impetuous choices, she is hurled into a future she could not have imagined and does not wish her parents to glean.

And so, to London. There at a rundown boarding house, she finds unexpected things: warmth, friendship, the means to support herself - and the strength to not only face her past, but to start again.