Life is idyllic for Spencer Marlowe, a successful Millennial marketing guru, living the dream in Perth, Western Australia. Good-looking, fit, and self-assured, Spencer is fascinated by Japanese culture, fluent in the Japanese language, and passionately in love with his Japanese girlfriend, Michiyo. He's also a formidable karate expert who just can't stop getting into trouble.

After a particularly eventful night, involving bikie gangs, he makes up his mind to marry Michiyo. But on the very same night as his romantic proposal, he is inexplicably transported back in time to Perth in 1942, where he finds himself a recruit in the army and forced to play a war game.

As time goes on, with no indication of when he might return to his old life, Spencer embarks on a dangerous mission to Singapore-his assignment to detonate Japanese ships and prevent the invasion of Australia.

But can Spencer destroy an enemy he's come to love? Can he convince his senior officers he's not a spy? Can he conform to a new culture and its old-fashioned beliefs? And-in this time-can he save the day?

Along the way, Spencer's comrades, and the many intriguing characters he meets, become like family. The beautiful and beguiling Trilby Lim, potentially something more.

But just as Spencer finds his feet, they're whisked out from underneath him, and he begins to question everything. Including if he wants to go back home...