Ella Taylor is a young, high-powered hedge fund trader just out of treatment for cocaine addiction. On her first night out after rehab she meets Alicia Graham, a talented keyboard player in a band. Both women feel an instant and undeniable attraction for one another. It is not long after their first meeting that Ella moves in with Alicia in West Hollywood.

Ella learns that Alicia was once on the cusp of making it big in the music business. Convincing Alicia to resurrect the now defunct band, and offering to finance the entire effort, the band records an album called Phoenix, and embarks upon a tour of California.

On tour with Alicia and the band, Ella becomes hooked on cocaine again and suffers a cardiac arrest. She is warned by her doctor to stay away from the drug as her next hit could kill her. But temptation (and cocaine) is everywhere. Meanwhile, Alicia is rising to stardom as a result of Ella's encouragement and financial backing. Ella's faith in Alicia is unconditional, but is her faith in herself great enough to overcome her addiction and choose life over death? It all comes down to The Faith...

Manying, distressed and frightened and unsure of the fate of her soldier husband, must flee Nanjing with her baby. With the help of her beloved childhood sweetheart, she finds a place on the last train leaving the city and endures a horrifying journey to Hong Kong where she is taken in by her brother and sister-in law. Grief-stricken and destitute, she struggles to make sense of the world in which she now finds herself. As she recalls the cruel fate of her uncle at a provincial court half a century earlier and all that has been lost, she makes a discovery: the past shapes the present. Fate, however, has yet more in store for her.

Love, war, sacrifice, corruption and revenge all play their part in this epic story that reaches its climax in twenty-first century Shanghai.