You MUST read this book.
I hear about books from a lot of sources. Blogs, friends, reviews, whatever. And then there's the books that I just run across in the library catalog while looking for something else. Which is to say, I have NO idea how I found this book. But I'm so glad I did!
Set in colonial Mayala, among the Chinese who reside there, the story is about Li Lin, a young woman of marriageable age who lives with her opium-addicted father and her beloved Amah. Despite the loss of her mother at a young age, all is pretty much satisfactory until she receives a marriage proposal from Lim Tian Ching, the son of an influential neighbor. A promising engagement with one small detail: Lim Tian Ching is dead and the proposal is for Li Lin to be his ghost bride.
Lim Tian Ching begins to haunt Li Lin in her dreams, and she is quickly drawn into a dark world of murder, hungry ghosts and restless spirits. She also falls in love with Tian Bai, the new (live) heir to the family. Li Lin ventures into the Chinese afterlife, travelling to the Plains of the Dead on an errand for the mysterious Er Lang, a man who may not be what he seems.
Choo creates a marvelously rich and detailed world of the dead: paper funeral offerings and hell money, afterworld bureaucracy and the shifting corporeal nature of ghosts. This novel is utterly original and impossible to slot in a particular genre. It's historical fiction with elements of fantasy, wonderfully suspenseful and spooky with more than a touch of romance. It's also just beautifully, vividly and cinematically written. Much of the book's world is based on Chinese folklore, and Choo's notes section outlines the original stories as well as her own creations. CRIPES, this is a good book.
