In 1938, more than 10 years before “the great leader had announced to the world the founding of the new China, the People’s Republic of China,” young sisters Mingyan and Shuyan lead the simple and careless lives that children so often do—until the threat of war draws too close for comfort. When their father, in the wake of the Nanking Massacre, instructs the girls to jump into the well and refuse to be taken alive if the Japanese invade their humble, rural city of Yixiang, Shuyan and Mingyan are thrust into a hurricane of unrest. Against a backdrop of public executions, underground spy networks, and an uneasy alliance among former enemies, Mingyan’s and Shuyan’s paths diverge—and when Mingyan falls in love with a spy for the Communist Party and follows him to Shanghai, disappearing from her family’s lives, Shuyan is certain that nothing will be the same again. For more than 40 years, love, family, war, and politics pull the young women away from one another and toward new beginnings as each longs for a home to return to—a home that might not even exist anymore. Bleau beautifully interweaves modern history, personal accounts of war, and the true stories of both the living and the dead to deliver a heart-wrenching and gripping work of historical fiction. While the history of the Chinese Communist Revolution, and the tales of war, poverty, and hardship that come with it, is vast and layered, the author’s seamless prose provides readers with an accessible view of the period through eyes that have seen it all unfold. Mingyan’s and Shuyan’s stories are impossible to forget and heartbreakingly real, and they will compel readers to keep turning the pages. As the perspective shifts from one complex character to another, each carefully-chosen word reinforces the powerful theme of the novel: War births survival, and survival births love.