As the First Opium War of the 1830s ignites China, the Western trading center, Canton, becomes a crucible of betrayal and ambition. Li-Mǐn, an English-educated barrister and spy with ties to Forbidden Palace nobility, fights the British beside a doomed army before fleeing 1,200 perilous miles to Beijing to reclaim his true identity, Prince Dun. Once there, only to find himself a threat to his brother's throne and a stranger to his wife, Lady Xu, and daughter, 'Willow'--the child he's never met.
Meanwhile, American opium trader Abiel Low embarks on a trans-ocean passage aboard Milo in pursuit of faster, so-called 'clipper' ships and greater fortune, encountering storms and natural disasters, all while crossing paths with naturalist Charles Darwin aboard the Beagle.
Two journeys, worlds apart, converge in an age being violently reshaped by imperial power, illicit wealth, and the dawn of the modern age.
