"One evening, my father asked me if I would like to become a ghost bride ..." Though ruled by British overlords, the Chinese of colonial Malaya still cling to ancient customs. And in the sleepy port town of Malacca, ghosts and superstitions abound. Li Lan, the daughter of a genteel but bankrupt family, has few prospects. But fate intervenes when she receives an unusual proposal from the wealthy and powerful Lim family. They want her to become a ghost bride for the family's only son, who 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 a terrible price. After an ominous visit to the opulent Lim mansion, Li Lan finds herself haunted not only by her ghostly would-be suitor, but also by her desire for the Lim's handsome new heir, Tian Bai. Night after night, she is drawn into the shadowy parallel world of the Chinese afterlife, with its ghost cities, paper funeral offerings, vengeful spirits and monstrous bureaucracy--including the mysterious Er Lang, a charming but unpredictable guardian spirit. Li Lan must uncover the Lim family's darkest secrets--and the truth about her own family--before she is trapped in this ghostly world forever.
‘If we’re going to have a wedding, maybe we should have an exorcism first.’ ‘Are you mad?’ she said. ‘That’s the last thing anybody wants to hear before a wedding!’
Finally, finally, I got to read Ghost Bride. It's been on my kindle for such a long time, I nearly forgot about it.
I had tried to get into the book previously but never found a way into the story. This time the Malaysian setting, the excursion into the Chinese spirit world and the unlikely murder mystery grabbed me almost from the start.
Unfortunately, the book started to flag at the end of the first third and the love triangle in the last third had me roll my eyes so often, I nearly skimmed to the end.
What can I say, I can't stand love triangles and in this particularly one, I just wanted to shout at our heroine: "The dragon. Always choose the dragon."
