by Yangsze Choo
First published 2013
Li Lan's father arrives home with shocking news. The wealthy Lim family wants the seventeen-year-old to become a ghost bride, marrying their deceased son. In 1890s Malaya, her family's financial ruin leaves few options. Li Lan visits the Lim mansion and finds herself caught between two worlds. Her dead fiancé's spirit pursues her while she develops feelings for the family's living heir. Each night pulls her deeper into the Chinese afterlife, where ghost cities sprawl beneath monstrous bureaucracies and vengeful spirits roam freely. Paper funeral offerings take solid form in this realm of the dead. Li Lan partners with Er Lang, a dragon who works as a clerk in the spirit world. Together they must solve the mysteries binding her to this supernatural marriage before she loses her chance to return to the living world forever.
Genres: historical-fiction, fantasy, supernatural, 19th-century, paranormal-romance, asian-american
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, suspenseful
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, supernatural-romance
Setting: Malaya
Period: 1890s
477 pages · ebook · Hot Key Books