Synopsis:
From the USA Today bestselling author of The Book Eaters comes The Girl with a Thousand Faces, a Gothic tale set in a historical Hong Kong that meshes ancient myths and local legends into a haunting story of ghosts, grief, and women who will not forgive.
When Mercy Chan washed up on the shores of Hong Kong with no family, no money, and no memories, she was thrust into the horrors of World War II. She only survived by hiding in Kowloon Walled City, an infamous, ghost-infested slum full of lost and traumatized civilians. Since the end of the war, she has rebuilt her life and found work with the local triad as a ghost-talker, dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt this place. These days, the filthy gutters and cramped alleyways of Kowloon feel like home.
But the past she can’t remember won’t let her go. An unusually powerful ghost has infested Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. Unnervingly, it claims to know Mercy―and her forgotten childhood. As Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realize that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.
33 years before, mere days ahead of the Japanese invasion, Sung Siu Yin and her mother flee Hong Kong, intending to hide out on her mother’s ancestral island home. It’s beautiful, tranquil, and remote. . . but also inhabited by ghosts ever since the entire village drowned in a storm many years ago. Still, it’s better than living under occupation.
But as the war drags on and isolation sets in, Siu Yin is increasingly drawn into the island’s grim past―a past that may still have a hold on the present. There is a darkness lurking beneath that idyllic ocean, and it has been waiting many years for someone to return.
Review:
When is a ghost story not a ghost story? In Sunyi Dean’s The Girl with a Thousand Faces, ghosts are real. Often the ghosts simply need a little help moving on, but sometimes there’s more to it. It serves as a compelling throughline to this historical fantasy where the truly-terrifying monsters are those we create. I appreciated Dean’s attention to detail when it comes to the time period and the location of Hong Kong during and after World War II. Dean takes a number of disparate pieces that feel vaguely connected and puts together a puzzle that is unexpected and satisfying all at the same time.
While there is no time travel involved in The Girl with a Thousand Faces, the story starts in 1975, in a Hong Kong that is still recovering and rebuilding after the Japanese invaded during World War II. Mercy has a special talent as a ghost-talker and we see that on full display in an entertaining and (somewhat) terrifying encounter with a recently passed elderly woman. Her skills have placed her high-up in an organization working to rebuild parts of Kowloon Walled City.
But, Mercy’s having visions and something’s off. Deaths are springing up and invading Mercy’s inner circle. There’s more to the story, but we aren’t privy to it yet.
Then the flash-back to 1942 with a young Sung Siu Yin and her mother provides a depth of context to Mercy’s life…but Dean doesn’t make it easy on her readers. Our expectations are turned upside down more than a few times as the truth is slowly and brutally revealed, spanning the gulf between 1942 and 1975.
Without spoiling anything, there were options on the table for Sunyi Dean as the story worked towards its climax and conclusion. Many of those options would have been devastating for the audience as well as the characters, but I think she chose the correct path for her characters. There was no easy answer and no journey that absolved everyone of their sins, but I think it worked. War and other past events chose things for Mercy and Sung Siu Yin and those actions can’t be undone. The trauma happened and can’t be rewound, so Dean forces her characters to confront the darkness they’ve embraced and what they will do with it once they’ve reckoned with their actions. It was heartbreaking in all the best ways.
There’s a fair amount of supernatural in this ghost story, but for me, the generational trauma caused by war and culture was the villains in Sunyi Dean’s The Girl with a Thousand Faces.
As for the narrator Natalie Naudus — I’m a huge fan. I’ve listened to a number of her previous narrations and am currently listening to another (Rebecca Thorne’s Moss’d In Space). She captures so much emotion in her voice and can expertly separate characters so you understand which female lead you’re listening to at a time. When I see her name on the audiobook for a future read, I’m thrilled to be able to have her voice as a comfort blanket of sorts.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio for providing this audiobook for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Leave a Reply