When her parents die from fever, Lady Sarah Montgomery Baird Watson-Wentworth has to leave India, a land she was born and raised in, and travel to England for the first time. Finding it almost impossible to adjust to London society, Sarah flees to the county of Cheshire and the country estate of Grangeback that borders the village of Stickleback Hollow. A place filled with oddballs, eccentrics and more suspicious characters than you can shake a stick at, Sarah feels more at home in the sleepy little village than she ever did in the big city; however, even sleepy little villages have mysteries that must be solved.

The Opium Wars have begun, but matters of gunboat diplomacy also require the services of more than soldiers to see them through. Though things in Stickleback Hollow are somewhat quieter than the residents have become used to, things in China are far from peaceful.

Alex and Sarah are making decisions about their future, whilst, in China, Miss Baker, Brigadier Webb-Kneelingroach, Captain Jonnes Smith and Countess Szonja are faced with the trials of serving secretive masters and trying to discover what became of Henry Cartwright.