In the year following their son's death, May Chen's parents face racist accusations of putting too much pressure on their son and causing his death by suicide, and May attempts to challenge the racism and ugly stereotypes through her writing, only to realize that she still has a lot to learn and that her actions have consequences for her family as well as herself.

Daniel, a Chinese-American teen, must grapple with his plans for the future, his feelings for his best friend Harry, and his discovery of a family secret that could shatter everything.

It has been eighty years since the Axis won World War II, and America was divided between the victors: the Nazis in the East and Imperial Japan in the West; but now resistance is growing in the Eastern territories and sixteen-year-old Chinese American Ren Cabot, who has every reason to hate the Japanese who executed his mother, finds himself drawn into a resistance group and confronted with choices that could lead to freedom--or death.