Beautiful, headstrong and unconventional, Catherine Cabot is twenty years old when she arrives in China. Against an uneasy political background a bittersweet, triangular love affair develops between Catherine and Edmund and George Airton. And all the while, she is trying to uncover the truth of her past, unaware of the danger this might pose to her.

Who is Henry Manners, the mysterious man who once wrote to her mother, and who she knows now lives in China? Running in parallel is the extraordinary story of Yu-Fu-kuei, a Chinese revolutionary working as a Communist spy. She and Catherine met when they were at Oxford immediately after the Great War, and the friendship is deep and permanent.

As the Japanese mass themselves on the borders, waiting for an excuse to invade, Catherine, ignorant of a history steeped in hatred, unwittingly becomes the perfect tool to settle the scores of two men who will stop at nothing to wreak their revenge. And Yu-Fu-kuei discovers that love might be the strongest weapon that any warrior has.

亚当•威廉姆斯（Adam Williams），中文名韦蔼德。

小说家，商人，旅行探险家。出身香港洋行大班、香港赛马会会长之家，少年时期长在日本，后来回英国，牛津大学英国文学毕业，在香港台湾学修中文。现任有170年远东历史的英国怡和洋行中国有限公司首席代表。20年来在北京工作生活，为家族中第四代在中国生活的人。此前曾做过水手、记者、中英商会会长，获英女王颁大英帝国骑士勋章（OBE）。极富冒险精神，曾组织骆驼探险队，自称“骆驼骑士”，深入塔克拉玛干沙漠寻找古城。2000 年，又参加古董车长途越野赛，从伦敦一路开到北京。

已出版的小说有：以中国历史为背景的《乾隆的骨头》等三部曲，《炼金术士之书》，被译成世界上15种主要语言出版。