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Ayaana grows up on Pate Island off the Kenyan coast, raised alone by her mother Munira, who was disowned by her wealthy family after becoming pregnant outside marriage. Their quiet life changes with the arrival of Muhidin, a former sailor who becomes a father figure to Ayaana and initiates her into the island's maritime traditions and the wider currents of the Indian Ocean world.

As Ayaana comes of age, the novel widens its scope — a tsunami, a religious extremist seeking refuge, kidnappers, and a delegation of Chinese cultural emissaries all pull at the fabric of the island. Ayaana eventually embarks on a voyage to China aboard a naval training ship, drawn into a passionate but unstable relationship with a Turkish-Chinese heir, and forced to reconcile her devotion to the sea with the pull of ambition, history, and violence.

Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor's second novel ranges across the old trade routes linking East Africa to Asia, using one young woman's journey to explore migration, inherited history, and the entangled cultures of the Indian Ocean.