Story Description:
HarperCollins
US|September 1, 2013|Trade Paperback|ISBN: 978-0-06-222732-4
Yangsze Choo’s
stunning debut, The Ghost Bride, is a
startlingly original novel infused with Chinese folklore, romantic intrigue,
and unexpected supernatural twists.
Li Lan, the
daughter of a respectable Chinese family in colonial Malaysia, hopes for a favourable
marriage, but her father has lost his fortune, and she has few suitors. Instead, the wealthy Lim family urges her to
become a “ghost bride” for their son, who has recently died under mysterious
circumstances. Rarely practiced, a
traditional ghost marriage is used to placate a restless spirit. Such a union would guarantee Li Lan a home
for the rest of her days, but at what price?
Night after night,
Li Lan is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, where
she must uncover the Lim family’s darkest secrets – and the truth about her own
family.
My Review:
The
Ghost Bride, was an exhilarating ride through the
afterlife in Malacca, China. I felt
throughout the book that I was being pulled up a huge hill and then let down
for a wild ride on the other side. Over
and over throughout the book I was on this amazing journey.
Li Lan, was the only daughter of a bankrupt
business man whose mother had already passed away years before. Her grandmother lived with them and doted on
Li Lan as her father was usually too buzzed out on opium to even carry a conversation
with her.
One day, Li Lan’s father asked her if she wanted
to become a “ghost bride” which apparently was a folk tradition of marriages to
ghosts in order to satisfy the spirits or allay a haunting. In other words, a living woman would be
married to a dead man with a real wedding taking place with a “rooster”
standing in for the dead bridegroom!
Of course, Li Lan thought her father was joking
but he was dead serious. He had been
approached by a member of the Lim family, the wealthiest family in all of
Malacca. If he agreed to Li Lan marrying
their dead son, Lim Tiang Ching, they would pay off all his debts and provide
himself and the grandmother with a comfortable living. Li Lan would live out her days in a beautiful
mansion with servants at her beck and call and the all the riches she could
ever hope for. Li Lan did not think this
was a good idea at all and said she would not ever consent to doing that.
Then, Lim Tiang Ching began invading her dreams
from the other side, even showing her the beautifully decorated reception hall
done in red. Li Lan told Lim Tiang Ching
it wasn’t going to happen, that she would never marry him.
Li Lan ends up visiting the Lim mansion and
becomes even more haunted by Lim Tiang Ching but also lays eyes on Ching’s new
heir, Tian Bai whom she found exceedingly handsome.
Night after night, Li Lan is drawn into the
afterlife. She meets Fan, a long
deceased spirit she sort of befriends who helps, Li Lan but ends up turning
against her later. She meets Er Lang who
is not of this world either but a guardian spirit, and Master Awyoung whom I
despised, along with a host of other worldly spirits.
Li Lan’s trek through the ‘Plains of the Dead’ had
me biting my fingernails and glancing around the room I was reading in every
few minutes. The puppet servants scared
me to death.
Can Li Lan find out the secrets of the Lim family
before her spirit is out of her body too long and is trapped in the ghostly
world forever?
Believe me, The
Ghost Bride will keep you reading long after bedtime.
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