Black Water Sister by Zen Cho: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

Black Water Sister by Zen Cho

It’s seldom that I get to plunge into an alien culture that is both contemporary and right here on earth, but Black Water Sister by Zen Cho lets me do just that. Set in provincial town in Malaysia, it depicts a culture I knew absolutely nothing about and was thoroughly fascinated with.

Jess is a daughter of Malaysian immigrants to the US, a Harvard graduate who should’ve had a great future ahead of her, only things haven’t gone the way she’s planned. When her parents face financial ruin, they decide that returning to the country they’ve left almost twenty years ago is the only solution. As their only child, Jess returns with them, her filial duty clear and simple to her. She leaves behind a girlfriend she hasn’t told her parents anything about, and an uneasy identity as not quite American.

But it turns out she’s not quite Malaysian either. Living with family members she hasn’t seen in years brings home how alienated she is from her cultural heritage. Add to that the stress of settling to a new country, finding a job, and hiding that she’s gay from her family, she’s not at all surprised when she starts hearing a voice of a woman who claims to be her grandmother who’s passed away a year earlier.

Jess needs to adjust her entire worldview to accept that she’s really haunted by her Ah Ma. Then she sets out to find out why Ah Ma hasn’t moved on. A development company is about to build houses on a temple where a vengeful goddess, Black Water Sister, is worshipped. Ah Ma tasks Jess to save the shrine.

Things aren’t as simple as that. The development company is run by a crime lord that Ah Ma seems to have a personal hatred for and getting involved with the affairs of mafia and gods puts Jess’s life at risk. It doesn’t help that Ah Ma is keeping secrets from her that might explain the whole sorry affair.

This was a wonderful book. It starts small and grows in scope and depth as the story continues. Malaysian culture comes to life in language and customs. Nothing is overly explained, yet I became totally engrossed in the alien world. The speech-patterns were especially delightful. As Jess sinks deeper into the affairs of the gods, the story becomes more familiar; gods are selfish, petty, and vengeful whether the story is set in a real world or a fantasy one.

The mystery is intriguing, but in the end it’s a story of three women in three different eras. Two of them have had their choices taken from them. Jess still has her life ahead of her, but she’s in a prison of her own making, as her girlfriend points out. It takes a goddess and a ghost for her to find freedom to make her own choices.

I received a free copy form NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The True Queen by Zen Cho: review

5/5 stars on Goodreads

The True Queen by Zen Cho

The True Queen is the second book in Cho’s charming Sorcerer Royal series that began with the Sorcerer to the Crown. It’s a fantasy set in Regency England, though the only clear reference to the period is the war with Napoleon. Magicians are integral part of that war, but magic has been dwindling because the Queen of Fairies has closed the border to her dominion where it stems from. Practicing magic is only allowed to men, the background against which the author reflects the customs and mores of the period. The first book ended with a woman seizing the highest post available for magicians, and becoming Sorceress Royal.

The second book is set a couple of years later, and starts with a completely different premise. It might seem like an odd choice after a successful first book, but it works perfectly well. Two girls wake up on a beach somewhere in Southeast Asia—likely Malaysia, as that’s where the author is from—with no memory of who they are other than their names, Muna and Sakti. Sakti has magic, Muna has not. Their attempt to solve the mystery of who they are leads to England and the Sorceress Royal, but during their trip through the fairyland, Sakti disappears, leaving Muna no choice but to try to solve the mystery alone.

This is Muna’s book. There are many other point of view characters as well, but it’s her story that matters. On her arrival to England, she is mistaken for the sister with magic, and treated accordingly. As the society only frowns at English women using magic, she doesn’t have to hide her skills unlike the women at Sorceress Royal’s new academy. However, as Muna has no magic, she’s forced to fake her way through the society. She forges her way into fairyland too, to save her sister. But somewhere along the way, she begins to suspect that things aren’t what they seem with her and Sakti. The revelations aren’t as huge for the reader though, as they’ve been made pretty obvious from the beginning.

The second book doesn’t deal as much with the unfairness of the English society to women as the first did. It concentrates on the women at The Lady Maria Wythe Academy for the Instruction of Females in Practical Thaumaturgy, and their friendships. Prunilla, the Sorceress Royal, is a side character, and instead the focus is on Henrietta, her best friend. She forms a friendship with Muna, which on her part warms to romantic love towards the end. It’s hinted at earlier in the story, but it’s never made a clear mention of, and Muna’s fate in the story is such, that Henrietta’s love goes unrequited. The second book, therefore, doesn’t have a similar charming romance as the first with Zachary and Prunilla as main characters. I missed it a little, but the book was full without it too.

The charm of the book isn’t in romance. It’s in the language that’s straight from Jane Austen by way of Georgette Heyer. Many have tried to emulate the style, but few have succeeded. Here, it happens effortlessly and beautifully. There’s nothing stuffy about it, and there are no anachronisms or jarring wrong tones marring the delightful language. The narrative tends towards omniscient, so even though there are dedicated point of view chapters, the narrator often shifts to another character during the chapters. But even that works fairly well.

In a book this good, there aren’t many flaws. My only negative note concerns Muna and how well she settled into English society. She’s been a servant in a paradise island, but nothing about the English society strikes her as odd. She doesn’t associate with the servants but assumes her role as a guest easily, she doesn’t comment on other things than the cold weather, and she takes to wearing English dresses easily. Not even the corset gets a mention. But it’s a minor detail and doesn’t take anything from my enjoyment of the book. I’m definitely looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab

I also read City of Ghosts by Victoria Schwab, one of my favourite authors. This is a smaller book aimed at middle grade readers about Cassidy who can see ghosts. She travels to Edinburgh with her family and ghost friend Jacob, and discovers that an old town has much more ghosts than her small town. And not all of them are benign.

The book started a bit slowly and I’m not sure it can keep the interest of a pre-teen reader well. Even I struggled to continue. But once the story gets properly under way, there’s action to the end. It was well written and spooky enough for an easily-scared adult. There’s a TV series being prepared based on the book, where the character has been changed to a university student; a pity really, as there are no good paranormal series for younger audience.

The other books I tried to read this month were both misses, though I was slow to admit it. It took Cho’s book with its excellence in storytelling to make me realise that the books really weren’t any good. They’ll end up in the not finished pile, never to be spoken again.