Central to this story that spans four generations and 50 years is Joseph Sherman's obsessive love for the beautiful daughter of a wealthy mandarin, an illicit romance that catapults him into her family's bitter involvement in the Vietnamese War.

"In 1969, sisters Trang and Quynh, desperate to help their parents pay off debts, leave their rural village to work at a bar in Sai Gon. Once in the big city, the young girls are thrown headfirst into a world they were not expecting. They learn how to speak English, how to dress seductively, and how to drink and flirt (and more) with American GIs in return for money. As the war moves closer to the city, the once-innocent Trang gets swept up in an...

In New Orleans, three daughters of a former beauty queen and Vietnamese refugee obsessed with zodiac signs are trying to go about their modern lives, but begin to encounter strange glimpses of long-buried secrets from their ancestors. What does the future hold for those born in the years of the Dragon, Tiger, and Goat? In present day New Orleans, Xuan Trung, former beauty queen turned refugee after the Fall of Saigon, is obsessed with divining her...