Name: The Girl with a Thousand Faces
Series: Stand Alone
Author: Sunyi Dean
Publisher: The Broken Binding x HarperVoyager
Format: Special Edition Hardback
Genres: Adult, Historical Fantasy, Paranormal
🌶️: None
😭: Some tears escaped
Rating:
Synopsis: Goodreads
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 survived by hiding in Kowloon Walled City, an infamous, ghost-infested slum full of lost and traumatised 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 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.
Thirty-three 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:
This may be the most successful impulse purchase this year! I am not a historical fiction reader really, I avoid it. But I have started dabbling with historical fantasy, thanks to V.E. Schwab primarily… but now I’ve read two amazing historical fantasies in a short time this year! The Poet Empress and now The Girl with a Thousand Faces!
All I knew when I picked this up was that we follow a woman who can speak to ghosts and helps them move on… It reminded me an awful lot of a TV show I love (IYKYK). But we got so much more than that – not to mention that seeing ghosts isn’t uncommon in this story! Ghosts are everywhere and our main character Mercy is pretty known for what she does, it’s not a secret. So, I was immediately thrown off by this but absolutely loved it. I loved this story. I can’t stress that enough. I knew very quickly I could become obsessed with this one.
Then it had to go and make me cry. Ohhhh boy. There was a scene in the story that was quite hard to read and before I knew it tears had escaped my eyes. And it was that moment I realised I was so locked in on this story, that I was so invested in both Mercy’s story and Siu Yin’s story that it had crossed into 5 star territory and all it had to do was wrap up well and it would be there. It did that and I have been debating 6 stars ever since I finished reading it.
I can’t tell you too much because there is a lot you don’t know you don’t know, until you realise you didn’t know it when you’re reading this story. I’m sure that is either confusing or a ‘well duh’ statement, but it does make it difficult to talk about the characters or the plot because I really don’t want to spoil anything! But I can talk about how this is written!
We have got multiple timelines going on in this book, so that can be confusing – but I feel like it’s really well telegraphed when you’re switching timelines so I found it easy to follow along with. Additionally, the witing of this book switches tenses – and I’ve seen a few people say that was difficult for them to read… But I personally found that it made me more emotionally connected to the story! Will I seek this style out? No, probably not. But I don’t think it’ll be an immediate ‘not for me’ if it has the chance to make me feel like it did in this story!
Sunyi Dean is a new author to me, though not a new author, and I think her writing is phenomenal! I loved every minute of this book, even when what was happening on the page was sad or a bit gruesome (there is death) or unnerving! She never once lost me. I know next to nothing about Asian history (honestly, barely anything about many places’ history…) and yet, as I said, she never lost me. But she has got a new fan in me, I am pretty sure I will be checking out her other work as well as keeping an eye out on what she decides to write next!
“Intent does not excuse harm.”
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