When Peng Hsuen-Mei, a Taiwanese girl from 1934, travels into the present and meets Li Yi-Hsing, a wedding singer plagued by stage fright, the two young women decide to pursue their musical dreams together. Along the way, they will have to solve the mystery of Peng Hsuen-Mei’s mysterious slippage through time, and recover a lost phonograph of a song written by Li Yi-Hsing’s grandfather, making for an epic tale of youthful passion and idealism.
Wedding singer Li Yi-Hsing has a talent for mimicry; she can morph her voice at will to sound like any pop star. However, because of her crippling stage fright, she cannot pursue her dreams of stardom, and only performs at the familiar venue where she works.
One day after a performance she is hit with a withering criticism: like the moon, she will never shine with a light of her own, and can only reflect the light of others. Shattered, Li Yi-Hsing visits a temple for guidance, drawing a fortune on a slip of paper. When she returns home she discovers a young woman dressed head-to-toe in vintage clothes who insists that this is, in fact, her house. She says she is Peng Hsuen-Mei, a recently-signed singer about to begin her first recording sessions… in the year 1934! Adding to the mystery, the time traveler has also drawn a fortune at the temple: the exact fortune that Li Yi-Hsing drew.
Li Yi-Hsing and her brother dig through historical records but can’t find anything – no surviving recordings by Peng Hsuen-Mei, nor any reference to them. Meanwhile, they have also been searching for a lost phonograph of a song written by their grandfather, also made in 1934. Could the girl from 1934 be the key that unlocks the mystery of their family’s musical legacy? The only sensible thing to do is have Peng Hsuen-Mei stay with them while they continue to delve into these mysteries and search for a way to return her to 1934. For her part, Peng Hsuen-Mei must adapt to contemporary life even as she continues to pursue her musical dreams.
Young women of different eras with identical dreams, both attempting to uncover their pasts, both of them to rushing to meet their futures. In an era of great unknowns, readers are sure to appreciate this mysterious tale of youthful dreamers who join together to explore the enigmas of love, friendship, family, and fortune.