An Athanate Novel of Nineteenth Century Saigon Saigon at dawn, they say, is like waking from an opium dream. But dreams become nightmares when monsters can take any shape – even a human one. It’s the end of the nineteenth century, in the French colonial empire of the Far East. Bian is a young Annamese girl whose father is a disgraced mandarin. The family is hounded by lies that he stole the emperor’s gold, and criminal gangs hunt for them through the shanty towns and floating villages. In a desperate bid to save all their lives, Bian’s parents have to flee the South, even if it means leaving their daughters behind. They plan for Bian’s elder sister to be a maid, disappearing into the anonymity of service to the French. Bian is sold to the Beauclercs, a French couple high in the administration, who are looking to adopt a child. For a few wonderful years, the scheme seems to work, but just as French designs for the colony change, Bian leans the awful truth about what truly happened to her sister. Nothing will stop Bian finding her, not even discovering that underneath the civilized facade of Saigon seethes a different world of human predators, shape-shifting tigers and blood-drinking vampires. Alone, betrayed, neither truly Annamese nor French, Bian must reap the harvest of lies.