Years after the death of her ervel and complicated mothen Drike is still surrounded by the things she loft behinch an onigiri basket, a Wedgwood ter set, a knotted ring from Okinawa. Against her Japanese family& wishes, Brike has also kept the ura containing her mothers ashes and bones refusing to put Michiko'& memory to rest. She ignores her grief, throwing herself into her work as a chef at a high-end London restaurant. But when a cousin announces that she will be visiting from Japan, Brika $ resolve begins to erack.

Slowly the things Michiko owned reveal stories of her youth amid the upheaval of Tokyo during and after the Second World War: As the two women's stories progress and entwine Erika is drawn to Okinawa, the island of her ancestors.

It's a place of magic and mysticism where the secrets of Erika's own past are waiting to be revenled.