Young Canadian seaman Harry Winslow has just arrived in Singapore after the bombing of his ship, the "Empress of Asia." One night in the ravaged city, Harry meets and falls madly in love with a vivacious young Englishwoman named Lily. After a hasty marriage, they are separated during the confusion of an air raid. Harry begins a desperate search for Lily across the Dutch East Indies, enduring hunger, illness, and unimaginable cruelty before finally being reunited with his wife. Many years later, in Canada, Harry sits at Lily's bedside. In her dying moments, Lily reveals an astonishing secret: She gives him the address of Michel Ney, a man who saved Harry's life before being killed by the Japanese during the war--or so Harry had always believed. Can Lily be in contact with a man she never met, and why does she insist on Harry's reunion with him now? Fifty years later after the wartime events that changed his life forever, Harry travels to Thailand to begin the final adventure of his life--to retrace the journey of his Empress of Asia and to uncover the mystery that lies at the heart of the love of his life.