In her thirty-eigth bestselling novel, Danielle Steel creates a powerful, moving portrayal of families divided, lives shattered and a nation torn apart by prejudice during a shameful episode in recent American History.

A man ahead of his time, Japanese college professor Masao Takashimaja of Kyoto had a passion for modern ideas that was as strong as his wife's belief in ancient traditions. It was early 1920's and Masao had dreams for the future - and a fascination with the politics and opportunities of a world that was changing everyday. Twenty years later, his eighteen-year-old daughter Hiroko, torn between her mothers traditions and her fathers wishes, boarded the SS Nagoya Maru to come to California for an education and to make her father proud. It was August 1941.