A tale of forbidden love and retribution as the sins of a father launch a feud between two sisters, set in the changing world of 19th-century Siam...The story begins in 1868 as Siam resists the advances of European colonialism while also artfully using foreign expertise to bring its capital, Bangkok, into the modern age. A young British photographer, Edward Fairburn, makes a shocking transgression no one must know about, and leaves his wife and child behind in Australia to make a new life in Bangkok. There he meets a beautiful Thai woman, Kesri, and their relationship puts in train a series of events that will have catastrophic consequences.Years later, Edward's daughters, Australian-born Elizabeth and her Thai half-sister, Anchalee, must each fight against the wrongs of the past, but their love for the same man, the dangerous and enigmatic writer Sam Taylor, will spiral into tragedy that none of them could have foreseen. Note: this book was first published as The Occidentals, but has been revised and republished in its second edition as The Sisters of Siam. The author's name has changed from Caron Eastgate James to Caron Eastgate Dann