Black Water Sister
SynopsisPlot
When Jessamyn Teoh starts hearing a voice in her head, she chalks it up to stress. Closeted, broke and jobless, she’s moving back to Malaysia with her parents – a country she last saw when she was a toddler. She soon learns the new voice isn’t even hers, it’s the ghost of her estranged grandmother. In life, Ah Ma was a spirit medium, avatar of a mysterious deity called the Black Water Sister. Now she’s determined to settle a score against a business magnate who has offended the god—and she's decided Jess is going to help her do it, whether Jess wants to or not. Drawn into a world of gods, ghosts, and family secrets, Jess finds that making deals with capricious spirits is a dangerous business, but dealing with her grandmother is just as complicated. Especially when Ah Ma tries to spy on her personal life, threatens to spill her secrets to her family and uses her body to commit felonies. As Jess fights for retribution for Ah Ma, she’ll also need to regain control of her body and destiny – or the Black Water Sister may finish her off for good.
Story
About this book
Jessamyn Teoh is broke, closeted, and unemployed when she moves back to Malaysia with her parents. She has not been in the country since she was a toddler, and the return is already stressful before a voice begins speaking inside her head. The voice belongs to her estranged grandmother, Ah Ma, who was a spirit medium during her lifetime and served a deity known as the Black Water Sister. Now dead, Ah Ma has unfinished business with a powerful local businessman she believes has insulted the god, and she expects Jess to carry out her plans.
The story is set in contemporary Malaysia and draws on Chinese Malaysian folk religion, where spirit mediums act as channels between people and local deities. Jess finds herself caught between her grandmother's demands and her own need to keep parts of her life private. Ah Ma is not a gentle guide. She monitors Jess's personal relationships, holds the threat of exposing her secrets over her, and at times takes control of her body without permission.
Zen Cho, a Malaysian author based in the United Kingdom, builds the novel around overlapping pressures: family obligation, cultural inheritance, and the question of how much autonomy a person can hold when spirits and relatives both claim authority over her choices.
