Black Water Sister

April 1, 2021

Jessamyn Teoh is moving back to Malaysia with her parents, after 19 years in the U.S. A few months out of college, Jess is unemployed and separated from her girlfriend--not that anyone else knows she's a lesbian. When she starts hearing voices, Jess presumes it's caused by the stress of moving in with her relatives and figuring out how to live in Penang. Yet the voice in her head reveals itself to be a ghost: the ghost of her grandmother Ah Ma, who herself was a medium. Jess finds herself pulled into family secrets as she tries to learn more about her grandmother and her family, and why Ah Ma's deity, the Black Water Sister, wants revenge against a local businessman and gang boss. Jess's willingness to help her grandmother find vengeance comes at a price, one that may cost Jess her own soul as part of the Black Water Sister's larger plan. Cho (The True Queen) blends Malaysia's Chinese diaspora culture with Jess's U.S. upbringing; she lays bare the internal clash between Jess's own identity and desires and her impulse to be a "good daughter." VERDICT An immersive tale of family secrets, deities, spirits, and religious belief. Cho offers a complex emotional roller-coaster of a read.--Kristi Chadwick, Massachusetts Lib. Syst., Northampton

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2021
This latest novel from Cho (The True Queen, 2019) follows Jessamyn, a young, closeted lesbian who moves to Malaysia with her immigrant parents after her father's recovery from cancer. Jessamyn's already stressful life of hiding her long-distance girlfriend from her parents is further complicated when the dead grandmother she never met starts talking to her. Suddenly she has to deal with a rude, overbearing ghost constantly telling her to get vengeance on a local gangster-turned-tycoon and pushing Jessamyn into a world of spirits, ghosts, and small gods. Things heat up even more when she attracts the attention of the Black Water Sister, a small goddess with a huge appetite for vengeance that her Ah Ma used to be the medium for. Cho effortlessly balances the variety of tensions at play in Jessamyn's head, whether it's her love of her girlfriend conflicting with her concerns about losing her parents' love, her skeptical U.S. upbringing clashing with the world of the occult her grandmother forces her into, or her desire to just be left alone when faced with the intoxicating but overwhelming violence of the Black Water Sister. Highly recommended both for fans of Cho's earlier work and for anyone interested in fantasy that features queer protagonists or non-Western settings and influences.

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