Awoken one night by a strong floral fragrance and the whisper of her childhood nickname, Jiao Mei is confronted in her London bedroom by a woman claiming to be her grandmother. At first, she dismisses this encounter as a vivid dream - Tie Mei, her father's mother, died years ago. Soon, though, the presence becomes powerfully insistent, and when Barbara, with whom she lodges, begins to behave strangely too, Jiao Mei must accept that this nighttime visitor is, indeed, her grandmother's ghost. Her message - that Jiao Mei is carrying the child of her British boyfriend - is one that she can no longer ignore, and one that will force Jiao Mei to re-examine her family's and China's past.