Loosed Boats is a novel is about Li Zhi's ambition to bring his daughter, Yan, to the United States by marriage to an American man, Guy Stewart, whom he met by chance on an early morning in his small store in Chicago's Chinatown. Eventually, with Li Zhi's financial assistance, Guy travels to China to meet and court Yan, a possible foreign wife, where he forms a connection with Yan's brothers, Juexin and Bao. But even though Guy and Yan marry, their relationship is strained, dangerously so after Yan comes to live with Guy in the U.S. Guy and Yan's time together is challenged further by her devious sister. For Yan, her marriage becomes only one of convenience.