Audiobook Review - Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo

I'll be honest, I really only chose this book because the original book by the author that I wanted to read, The Fox Wife, wasn't on Libby so I settled for this one. But I was really pleasantly surprised by how much I loved this story. And the narrator who read this book had a perfect voice for narrating. Sometimes narrators have the voice that's at the perfect frequency to make you zone out, but this narrator kept me so interested in the story. 

The Ghost Bride takes place in Malacca, a port city in colonial Malaya (today's Malaysia). Li Lan is a young woman who lost her mother and lives with her father and Amah. One day her father tells her that he received a marriage offer from the Lim family, but that it would be a ghost marriage since Li Lan would marry the deceased son Lim Tien Ching who died mysteriously. She is invited to the Lim mansion to meet the family, and while there she meets Lim Tien Ching's cousin Tien Bai. Tien Bai is handsome and worldly and impresses Li Lan. After meeting with the Lim family, Li Lan realizes she doesn't want a ghost marriage. But when the ghost of Lim Tien Ching starts haunting Li Lan, she realizes that she's going to have to do something about it. She enlists the help of her Amah to help her get rid of Lim Tien Ching's spirit and together they go to a medium and get herbs to help ward off the spirit. But when the herbs start to not work, Li Lan overdoses on them and is cast into the world of the afterlife. However, she finds that she cannot return to her body, so she travels around in the world of the afterlife trying to find her way back to her body. To do she Li Lan has to uncover some dark secrets about the Lim family, and her own.  Along the way, she meets Er Lang a helpful spirit and protector who helps her along her journey back to her body before she's trapped in the afterlife.

The characters in this book felt so real and were extremely likable. Li Lan was strong and intelligent and I thought her relationship with her Amah was so beautiful. As Li Lan was in the afterlife, the fact that her clothing kept changing for months because her Amah was changing it in the real world was such a beautiful way of showing their love. I wish there was more of a resolution for Li Lan's father. He was wasting away smoking opium after the death of Li La's mother and in the end, we don't know what will happen with Li Lan's family members. my favorite character, by far is Er Lang. He's so smooth and charming. 

This story was really good. Although the plot is a bit slow, a lot of it is just Li Lan wandering around the spirit world, I still thought it was interesting. The author did a great job of describing the mysterious ghostly parallel world of Malacca. I am definitely interested in reading more by Yangsze Choo and still want to read The Fox Wife, which I wanted to read initially.