Book excerpt: When Peg Ryan has a chance to join her Marine fighter pilot husband in Tsingtao, China in 1947, she jumps at it. After their separation during World War II and his year in China, her family could be whole again. Soon Peg and her seven-year-old daughter are on a transport ship to China forming friendships with other Marine families. Once the Riviera of the Orient, Peg discovers Tsingtao’s layered complexity as she lives in a mansion with servants, volunteers at a local orphanage, and befriends those who mingle with the international community. Her life becomes tangled with others through loves, losses, births, deaths, and intrigue in a city where little is as it seems. As Mao’s troops threaten the city and its strategic port, Peg will discover if coming to China has saved or destroyed her family.