"A brilliant, page-turning novel...This is storytelling at its finest—immersive, transporting, and destined to captivate readers everywhere."—Heather Morris, #1 bestselling author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz

From the national bestselling author of The Lotus Shoes, a haunting historical novel following two women, a century apart, bound by marriage into the same powerful family

Two brides, one destiny—bound by time and tragedy.

1806, Cloud Mountain. Jiayi is the Gu family’s scullery maid, so she is thrilled when the heir chooses her to be his "little wife." But this quasi-marriage offers no security, and Jiayi’s situation becomes increasingly perilous with her husband’s family plotting against her.

1906, Shanghai. Scarlet is devoted to her midwifery work at Red House Hospital, and can’t imagine abandoning it for the constraints of marriage–until she meets benefactor Wenqiang Gu. After a whirlwind courtship, he persuades her to join him at his remote estate and to bring modern medicine to the village.
Scarlet arrives at Cloud Mountain only to find her new marriage overshadowed by superstition. The villagers believe the family is cursed, and Scarlet begins to fear her fate is bound to that of another bride, one who lived a hundred years before . . .