Young, beautiful and wealthy, widow Charlotte Macleod, leaves Batavia in the 1850s and returns to Singapore for the English education of her two young sons. She is determined not to be drawn back into a secret affair with Chinese triad-member Zhen. Drawing on the real-life historical personalities of the time, Dawn Farnham deftly mixes fact and fiction to paint a vivid portrait of mid-nineteenth century Singapore at a time when triads, piracy and crime were rife.