"The Ghost Bride" by Yangsze Choo: A Novel of Love, Mystery, and Chinese Mythology

Maree LaRue: I'd had this book on my TBR for awhile and requested it from the library on a whim. Despite a killer opening line, it was a slow start. The whole story is told from Li Lan's first-person POV, with a few asides as she reflects on her journey.

As other reviewers have noted, the richly described and layered setting is the true star of the book. Li Lan is a fine YA protagonist forced into an unusual role due to tragic family circumstances. I really enjoyed the relationship she had with her Amah (nurse/nanny).

There are many hallmarks of a YA coming of age tale, but we're exploring the afterlife here. As detailed in the author notes, the overseas Chinese that settled Malaya (Malaysia) mixed their home customs and beliefs with the locals'. Choo does a wonderful job of bringing the afterlife...to life. You really connect with Li Lan's conflict along the way. I liked moving from genteel, restrictive 19th century life, to dreams, to adventures in the shadows of the afterlife.

I left off one star because the plot did get the same layering treatment as the world-building: too many layers. Just like Li Lan could lose her grip on dreams and reality, so too can the reader...

United States on Jul 26, 2022

Melody Boggs: What a stunning debut novel! Once I started, I couldn't put this one down for an instant. I even read it at work, sometimes on lunch break, sometimes not. Ssh! Don't tell.

Yangsze Choo brings readers into the world of Chinese mythology and family politics. Anyone familiar with works such as The Tale of Genji will instantly recognize the secrecy and intrigue that comes with being a part of a prestigious family and the advantageous relationships they make. The added bonus of the Chinese afterlife making a prominent appearance in the book is only an added bonus.

The Ghost Bride takes place in Malaysia, a Chinese providence, and follows a young woman named Pan Li Lan, whose opium-addicted father has allowed for his family and his estate to fall into poverty after the death of his wife. As a result, Li Lan has very few prospects for marriage, until the powerful Lim family makes Li Lan an offer: become a ghost bride for their recently deceased son, Lim Tian Ching. She would not be able to ever marry again, but she would want for nothing. Though Li Lan refuses, her situation is only complicated when the spirit of Lim Tian Ching begins to haunt her, and she falls in love...

United States on Oct 12, 2017

Greatgreenbird: I'm always on the lookout for stories which are a bit different to the usual run-of-the-mill fantasy and The Ghost Bride was recommended by a couple of people as a result of its unusual (or not often written about, we should probably say) setting and underlying mythology. Li Lan is growing up in Malacca, then under British rule still as it's the turn of the 20th century, a teenager whose mother died when she was very young and whose father had pretty much hidden himself away since then. When we first meet Li Lan and her family, it's to discover that her impecunious father has promised her hand in marriage to the son of a wealthy family - so far, so good and nothing unusual in terms of plot, except that said son has died and Li Lan is to be his ghost bride.

As she gets to know the family she is due to marry into, she discovers that there is more to the recent death than first appears and, after a minor mistake in dealing with the dead man's mother, the ghost of the dead son begins to haunt her. He, it seems, has done some kind of deal with those who manage the underworld and he is determined to both ruin his handsome cousin (who Li Lan has also met and fallen for) and get...

United Kingdom on Nov 05, 2016

Geertje: The ghost bride- Yangsze Choo

Ever since I was a child, the paranormal fascinated me. When my parents, sisters and I visited a place I had never been before, I always wanted to visit the graveyard there first (or so they tell me). It therefore isn’t surprising to know that I was thrilled to bits when I realised that there was a novel about an ancient Asian ritual that allowed the living to marry the dad. The ghost bride was right up my alley and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. Did this novel by Yangsze Choo live up to my expectations?

One night, Li Lan’s father asks her whether she wants to become a ghost bride. They live in Malacca, a sleepy town in Malaya, which at the time this story takes place is a British colony. Her mother has died when she was still young and her father has squandered away the family’s fortune with his opium addiction. Li Lan has little prospects, but if she decides to marry the recently deceased heir of the wealthy Lim family, she will be provided for the rest of her life. Ghost marriages are sometimes completed to prevent the dead from haunting their families. Li Lan has to think about this offer, because she isn’t sure...

Germany on Oct 24, 2014

Sam: The Ghost Bride is a historical fantasy novel set in a Malaya ruled by the British Empire. Li Lan is a member of the Chinese community there, the daughter of a once prosperous and respected man, who has become bankrupt following the death of his wife. Life seems to hold few opportunities for Li Lan until she learns of an offer to become a ghost bride, the wife of the dead son of the wealthy Lim family. At first she is horrified, but the more she learns about the family and the circumstances surrounding the death of Lim Tian Ching, the more she is drawn into the mystery of the household. Soon she finds herself exploring the spirit world of Malaya, guided by the enigmatic Er Lang, in a quest to find out what really happened and why she has been selected as a ghost bride, before she is trapped forever in the shadowy after-life.

I started The Ghost Bride expecting it to be mainly historical fiction, so the amount of fantasy in the novel surprised me. But in a good way. Choo has taken Chinese beliefs about the afterlife and used them to create a fascinating, fully formed fantasy world that is the unreserved star of the show. I just loved the blending of fantasy with traditional...

United Kingdom on Feb 22, 2014

Julia: Irgendwie waren meine Erwartungen an dieses Buch so wirklich riesen groß. Ich war zuversichtlich, dass das Buch mich umhauen würde, alleine diese zahlreichen positiven Rezensionen und die originelle Idee, da muss es mir einfach gefallen! Doch wie ihr schon anhand der Sternenzahl sehen könnt, war dem leider nicht so.

Die Geschichte spielt im 19. Jahrhundert in der Stadt Malaya. Eines Abends wird die junge Frau Li Lan von ihrem Vater gefragt, ob sie eine “Geisterbraut” sein möchte. Er habe ein Angebot von der Lim Familie bekommen, deren Sohn Lim Tian Ching vor kurzem gestorben ist. Durch die Vermählung mit dem Toten hätten sie und ihre Familie ein Leben ohne Geldsorgen vor sich. Außerdem ist sie schon fast achtzehn Jahre alt, also wird es langsam Zeit, dass sie unter die Haube kommt. Doch nachdem Li Lan das Angebot abgelehnt hat, erscheint Lim Tian Ching plötzlich in ihren Träumen und denkt erst gar nicht daran, da wieder zu verschwinden, bis sie das Angebot annimmt. Plötzlich findet sie sich auch noch in einer Welt der Toten wieder.

Ehrlich gesagt habe ich mich gar nicht zu sehr mit dem Inhalt beschäftigt, bevor ich es gelesen habe. Deshalb war ich mehr...

Germany on Feb 19, 2014

JLee: Our plucky heroine lives in 19th Century Malaysia, but she is of Chinese descent. Her mother died in a smallpox epidemic; her father lived through it but was deeply scarred physically and spiritually, becoming a disinterested opium addict. His business and social life suffered accordingly, and Li Lan has no dowry or contacts that will give her a future. But then, a wealthy family approaches with an offer: they want Li Lan to “marry” their deceased son and enter their house as a perpetually mourning widow, a ghost bride.

If that’s not creepy enough, Li Lan begins having dreams about this son, whom she has never met. She finds the dream version of him utterly repulsive. He tells her he is obsessed with her (he had seen her previously) and that she will be his bride or else. She cannot escape.

Meanwhile, Li Lan visits the wealthy family and meets a young man, who she believes is a servant. She’s immediately attracted to him. Later, she finds out that he was the original heir to the family fortune, but was cut out when his father died. Now that the son she is being lured to marry is dead, the young man she met has been restored as the heir. Stranger yet, it seems...

United States on Dec 23, 2013

Richard Abbott: 'The Ghost Bride', by Yangsze Choo, begins as though it were a piece of historical fiction. However, like the characters involved in the story, it soon begins to cross over between the worlds of the living and the dead, between history and fantasy. Yangsze has blended a well-researched background in the Chinese community of 1890s Malaya, with equally convincing portrayals of parts of the world of the dead, as conceived by the people of that place and time.

As she explains in the author's note, these beliefs about the dead differed in certain respects from those held in mainland China, and did not comprise a consistent "theology". Rather like the ancient Egyptian ideas that I am more familiar with, there was a collection of disparate tales and images. These provide windows of insight into a vivid and credible world of experience, but not a systematic attempt to catalogue it. Indeed, I was struck by the many ways in which the Chinese images dovetailed with the much older Egyptian ones: no doubt there is a fascinating field of study there!

Back to the story. This combines elements of several different genres, all told in first person perspective. The main character is...

United Kingdom on Sep 09, 2013