This was an enjoyable book that kept me interested and reading, but nothing special. It was published during WWII and the story begins with a US Marine and two American women taken prisoner in Shanghai China when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. The marine had just left his ship for shore leave and was too far to return immediately. He is arrested when he got back to the dock to find his ship was gone, not wanting to be captured with war declared.

I guess I'd call this a war romance story. There's a bit too much "love at first sight .. I'll do anything for him/her" going on with multiple characters. It is a novel of the times, yet has an interesting unlikeable Japanese commander who is both stereotypical, and not. Most of the main characters are fairly strong women and I thought the characters were well realized. We spend a lot of time with a eurasian woman, half french and half chinese, another a journalist who is courted relentlessly by the Japanese commander and the other sort of an aid worker who has been in China for decades. I think some of the characters stretch a bit beyond the stereotypes we might expect, although the character of the marine struck me as rather underdeveloped. There is a good supporting cast of minor characters as well.

A few elements of the story had me perplexed a little, but it may have just been me, and bits of archaic language, phrases and style tripped me up a little. Buck's first-hand familiarity gives the reader a very real sense of China and the times, although I don't think she had any direct experience with the Japanese invasion. That is probably the greatest strength of the novel. There were several interesting storylines within the novel, and the characters are all linked in various ways as they hope and then work towards an escape. ( )