The night tiger

Quick-witted ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker moonlighting as a dancehall girl to help pay off her mother’s Mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir Ji Lin may finally get the adventure she has been longing for. Eleven-year-old houseboy Ren is also on a mission racing to fulfill his former master’s dying wish: that Ren find the man’s finger lost years ago in an accident and bury it with his body. Ren has 49 days to do so or his master’s soul will wander the earth forever. As the days tick relentlessly by a series of unexplained deaths racks the district along with whispers of men who turn into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren’s increasingly dangerous paths crisscross through lush plantations hospital storage rooms and ghostly dreamscapes. Yangsze Choo's The Night Tiger pulls us into a world of servants and masters age-old superstition and modern idealism sibling rivalry and forbidden love. But anchoring this dazzling propulsive novel is the intimate coming-of-age of a child and a young woman each searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible.