In war-torn Shanghai in 1937, 21-year-old a-Ling is desperate to escape her loveless family and pursue her lifelong dream: a literature fellowship in London. She just needs money to pay for it. But no one will hire her over the cheap refugee labor flooding into Shanghai’s British-controlled International Settlement as Japanese soldiers terrorize the city outside. With nowhere else to turn, a-Ling begs her estranged cousin for a job at his small magazine. He agrees on one condition: she must help him circumvent the censorship laws that recently suspended all Chinese periodicals, including his.

The censorship laws contain a loophole: they only apply to periodicals registered by Chinese nationals. If she can convince a foreigner to front their registration, her cousin’s magazine can resume publication, and she can earn enough money to go to London. a-Ling’s last hope for the fellowship rests on an elusive British financier, Edgar, with inexplicable ties to the Settlement’s murky underground politics.

With Edgar’s support, the magazine grows more popular, and a-Ling’s relationship with Edgar grows romantic. But when the brutal war enters the Settlement and pro-Japanese terrorists murder a-Ling’s cousin, she knows the magazine was more than just a standard periodical, and Edgar more than just a financier. Caught in the crossfire between foreign superpowers and pro-Japanese terrorists, a-Ling must decide whether to betray her cousin’s life dream and her country and escape to London—or stay home and fight for freedom.