The doyenne of bestseller lists weaves another romantic story in her 38th novel, a tale of separated families and shattered lives set against one of the most morally reprehensible events in u.s. History: the internment o...The doyenne of bestseller lists weaves another romantic story in her 38th novel, a tale of separated families and shattered lives set against one of the most morally reprehensible events in u.s. History: the internment of Japanese-americans during ww ii. In 1941, 18-year-old hiroko takashimaya, the beautiful, painfully shy daughter of a modern-thinking professor and a tradition-bound mother, is sent from her home in kyoto to live in California with her American cousins and attend a Prestigious Women's college.