Yangsze Choo

I read and enjoyed an earlier novel by Yangsze Choo because it was set in Malaysia where I lived for several years. So when I saw The Fox Bride on the new books shelf of my local library, I scooped it up wondering how she would deal with foxes in Malaysia. Surprise! This novel is set in northern China and Japan just before the Japanese takeover of Manchuria. Choo must have spent time with the history books as well as the folklore studies. This is a very plausible book about fox people in the Chinese and Japanese cultures but it is also the story of a fox woman struggling to move beyond grief. I enjoyed this one immensely.… (more)

Li Lan is from an impoverished but genteel family in Malaya (Malaysia)- set in 1893. Her future is bleak when her father comes home with a proposition for her to become a ghost bride to the deceased son of a wealthy family. She would be taken care of for life but would spend her life at the shrine of her husband. When she goes to meet the family, she is drawn to the new heir, the deceased’s cousin. From here the story becomes surreal with her being pursued in her dreams by Lim Tian Ching from the afterlife. When her spirit is separated from her body and she enters the afterlife in an attempt to answer the questions she has about her family, his, and her future, she meets a guardian and official, Er Lang, who is running an investigation as well. Very unusual fantasy based on mythological concepts of Asian religions. Not my cup of tea, but OK.… (more)

When the ghost of a wealthy young man and his living family seek the betrothal of Li Lan to the deceased, an ancient rare Chinese custom, Li Lan embarks on a journey through the land of the dead to discover more about him, his family, & the man she thinks she loves. The afterlife mirrors the real world in shadowy ways. We follow her semi-ghost (not dead yet) as she meets the long-dead. What an imaginative story and I especially like the ending! It doesn’t end with a cliffhanger of any sort, but it does beg for more books. This book is set in Malaysia I’m not sure why because the story could have been told anywhere within the Chinese diaspora. The notes at the end do describe a bit about Malaysia, which I found enlightening. But for the unusual setting of Malaysia, I highly recommend this book. Now…to find the Netflix series!… (more)

After Li Lan’s mother dies, Li Lan lives with her opioid addicted father and her amah in their respectable but crumbling family house. Unfortunately, Li Lan’s father has not kept up with society and so has no prospective grooms for his daughter to marry as she comes of age. Although she was informally engaged as a child, it seems to have fallen apart. Her father is pleased then to receive an offer of marriage from the same family – but the twist is that she would be the bride of their dead son, Lian Ching. She would live secluded in his family home, be well taken care of, but have no prospects for children or position.

Li Lan rejects this offer, but finds her ghost suitor Lian Ching inserting himself into her dreams and her everyday life and becoming angrier by the day.

She sickens and her body is separated from her spirit. Now her spirit is in real trouble as Lian Ching pursues her in the ghostly realm with his frightening and powerful spirit friends as she undertakes a journey to find her way home especially to Tian Bai, the boy she was originally engaged to as a child and now the head of her ghost suitor’s family. During her wanderings she also searches for her dead mother, as well as meeting the helpful but seemingly powerful Er Lang.

The author is of Chinese descent but was born and lived in Malaysia until age twelve. In her multiple endnotes about the book, Choo describes the afterlife mythology as a combination of Chinese and Malay which she notes is common to the area. She made this comment which I felt was my favorite from the book: “It seemed to me that in this confluence of cultures, we had acquired one another’s superstitions without necessarily any of their comforts.”

I enjoyed the book, but the plot was often secondary to the exploration of the afterlife. Nevertheless, I persisted and felt the ending redeemed the story. This was the author’s first book – I would definitely read another.… (more)