Sarah hadn t wanted to come to Australia. She s been perfectly happy with things how they were in Singapore where school was for learning, and being cool was a non-issue. Now Dad was trying his best to make her into a fair dinkum Aussie while Mum was determined to hang on to all the old Asian traditions. During the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts Sarah meets the ghost of Pei, a Chinese girl who was not much older than Sarah when she died. As the story unfolds, it becomes apparent that the girls share a common ancestry. Initially reluctant, Sarah helps Pei to discover the truth about events surrounding her death and the lover she believed had betrayed her. Set in contemporary Singapore and Australia, and nineteenth-century China and Australia, this sprawling tale by Sally Heinrich touches on issues of Chinese immigration to Australia from the 1800s to the present.