Inheriting a luxurious oceanfront resort under a condition that she must run it profitably for one year to claim full ownership, food critic Peyton Lockhart is targeted by dangerous rivals and is protected from a threat against her life by childhood friend and attractive FBI agent Finn MacBain.

Violet Minturn, a half-Chinese/half-American courtesan who deals in seduction and illusion in Shanghai, struggles to find her place in the world, while her mother, Lucia, tries to make sense of the choices she has made and the men who have shaped her.