The description of this gave me such high hopes, and although I loved the start with the frame narrative, the rest didn't really pan out for me. Mostly, I think there's just no reason for this to have been a novella; there were far too many characters for us to get to know them or for the main romance to develop in a satisfying way. Also, the magical element also felt very underdeveloped, likely due to the lack of time.
The other thing that kinda put me off was that despite the story being set in historical Chinatown-and the author never let us forget, slurs and all-neither of the romantic leads was Chinese (though some side characters were).
If you're thinking of reading this, I would encourage you to check out Last Night at the Telegraph Club first, as I think it's a bit more successful at doing what this book set out to.