She is a Haunting
Jade Nguyen has never really been able to fit in – but she’s always been able to lie just enough to get by. Her sexuality, her heritage, the way she’s expected to live her life, it all feels like a constant conflict. Now, she finds herself in Vietnam for the summer with her estranged father. If she can survive five weeks of awkward interactions and ignore the strange feeling she can’t shake off in the French colonial house her father is attempting to fix up, she’ll have made it to college and to freedom.
But that feeling soon becomes something she can’t ignore, as she realises that the house is more sentient than she could have imagined – a sentience that is determined to never be abandoned again.
This is a stunningly written book, atmospheric and intense in equal measure. Jade’s first-person sections are compelling and believable, and are especially effective when juxtaposed with the house’s third-person sections. If a ghost story can also be a romance, then this is certainly a romantic ghost story. Evocative, affecting, chilling at times, this is a beautiful read that will offer much to any reader willing to invest in its unusual narrative.
