Powerful, not just for teenagers

Li Lan is a 17 year old girl living with her father in 1890s Malaya, her family was once prosperous but is now impoverished and they live quietly.  They are part of the stratified expatriate Chinese community living in Malacca, it is a society of gestures and manners, of honour and reputation. 

Li Lan's father tells her he has received an offer of marriage for her to Lim Tian Ching, son of the wealthy Lim family.  However, this is a ghost marriage, Lim

Tian Ching recently died and although unusual it is not unknown, the bride of such a union has a place in her bridegroom's household and that of the Lim's offers her a luxurious life and security that her father cannot.  Summoned by Lim Tian Ching's mother she is drawn to his cousin Tian Bai.  Trying to gain sleep and rest from dreams in which she is plagued by Lim Tian Ching's spirit she accidentally overdoses on powerful herbs and pitches herself into the hinterland between life and death.  Comotose in the living world her spirit embarks on a journey to the Chinese underworld where status is conferred by the funeral offerings familes make for their ancestors and she has to find a way to defeat the forces pitted against her. 

Li Lan's story is a mythic one and infused with a strongly communicated sense of what life would be like for a 17 year old girl in Malacca in the 1890s, intelligent, determined, loving, but bound by strict courtly rules.  The supernatural elements concerning the Chinese afterlife are convincing and seem well researched.  I really enjoyed it, a well written book.