In 1872, seventeen-year-old Amy Duncan arrives in the New South Wales gold rush town of Millbrooke, having spent the coach journey in a daydream of glittering pavilions and gilded steeples. What she finds is a dusty main street lined with ramshackle buildings. That is, until she walks through the doors of Mr Chen’s Emporium, a veritable Aladdin’s cave that changes her life forever. Forbidden to enter the shop run by ‘heathens’ by her dour clergyman father, Amy is entranced by its handsome owner, Charles Chen.  In present-day Millbrooke, recently widowed artist Angie Wallace has rented the Old Manse where Amy once lived. When her eccentric landlord produces an antique trunk containing Amy’s intriguingly diverse keepsakes – both Oriental and European – Angie begins to learn more about Amy’s life and her defiance in the face of the disapproval of the society of her times.