As protests erupted across the city in 2019 and were met with escalating suppression from Beijing, Louisa Lim - raised in Hong Kong as a half-Chinese, half-English child and now a reporter who had covered China and Hong Kong for more than a decade - realised that she was uniquely positioned to unearth the region's untold story before it was too late. Lim's deeply researched - and deeply personal - account casts often startling new light on key moments: the British takeover in 1842, the negotiations leading to its 'return' to China in 1997, the current protests, and the future Beijing seeks to impose.