From the martial law era of Taiwan to present-day Kauai, a woman uncovers her family’s secrets in a moving multigeneration saga by the author of The Fourth Daughter.

When Joey Zhang’s brother, Sam, drowns off the coast of Kauai, she must return to the island to piece together the clues he left behind. In the process, Joey unearths secrets Sam had kept from her all her life, along with their mother’s journal, which reveals what really happened the night their parents died when Joey was only eleven.

With the help of Sam’s best friend Ethan, Joey embarks on a journey to unveil long-buried family trauma that reaches back to a Taiwan plagued with mass violence and totalitarian rule during the White Terror. Moved by her mother’s heartbreaking confessions and following the cherished mythology of the Old Man Under the Moon, who unites all predestined couples with a silken cord, Joey becomes a witness to a past she never imagined.

Sweeping across decades, continents, and lifetimes of impossible choices that still echo into the present, Joey must decide whether she is strong enough to face the horrifying truth about her parents’ lives and discover who she truly is, or turn her back on the only family she has left.