![]() We know this because the ghostly groom visits Li Lan in her dreams, explaining the situation and making ominous threats. The cousin now stands to inherit the family fortune and get the girl, which drives the petulant ghost of Lim Tian Ching crazy. It seems the young man carried a torch for Li Lan while he was alive, though she was intended for his cousin (unbeknownst to her). ![]() The novel’s heroine, Li Lan, receives an offer of marriage from the wealthy family of Lim Tian Ching, a young man who died suddenly of a fever. ![]() ![]() Set in the 1890s in Malaysia (or, as it was known then, Malaya), this decadently imagined, elaborately romantic novel delves into the world of the supernatural in colonial Chinese culture, including the tradition of “spirit marriages.” Historically, spirit marriages were a way to appease the ghosts of young people who had died single, so they wouldn’t be lonely in the afterlife. In that sense, the first marriage proposal in Yangsze Choo’s debut novel, The Ghost Bride, is a little unusual: It comes from someone who’s been dead for months. Usually these dreams include, at minimum, another human being. ![]() Plenty of girls daydream about their future weddings. ![]()
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