1909, Seattle. For twelve-year-old Ernest Young, a charity student at a boarding school, the chance to go to the World’s Fair feels like a gift. But when he’s there amid the exotic exhibits, the half-Chinese orphan discovers that he will actually be a prize, raffled off to ‘a good home’. He is claimed as a servant by the flamboyant madam of a high-class brothel. There he forges new friendships and discovers a sense of family for the first time. Perhaps this is the home he’s always wanted?

On the eve of the new World’s Fair fifty years later, Ernest is juggling memories and the demands of his ailing wife as well as long-held family secrets which threaten to leak out.

A powerful new novel, inspired by a true story,from the bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.