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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
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SHE IS A HAUNTING
A Vietnamese-American girl must escape a house haunted by its colonial past when she spends a summer in Vietnam.
When Jade Nguyen arrives in Vietnam for a visit with her estranged father, she has one goal: survive five weeks pretending to be a happy family in the French colonial house Ba is restoring. She's always lied to fit in, so if she's straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, she can get out with the college money he promised.
But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound, while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don't belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can't ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves her cryptic warnings: Don't eat.
Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house - the home her family has always wanted - will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house's rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all.
SHE IS A HAUNTING is a heady, twisty mix of the real and the surreal, intensely atmospheric and immersive and lyrical. Trang Tranh Tran's story is both so universal and yet so culturally specific, a rich exploration of place and history and familywhat it means to belong, and how one is defined (or not defined) by this sense of belonging. Jade's perspective on colonialism, her feelings of being an outsider, her struggles with her identity, her sexuality, her responsibilities to her family, friends, selfthese layered, complex themes are all deftly woven together, a perfect, grounding contrast to the horrors of the house and its inhabitants. This novel is many things, inspiring and heartbreaking, utterly chilling, and even swoony against all odds; it is a story that is not easily forgotten, a story that will prickle at the edges of your mind far past the last page.
Trang Thanh Tran is a queer Vietnamese American writer telling all stories scary, otherworldly, and emotional for young adults and adults. They are an alum o the Writing Barn's Rainbow Weekend 2020 and Tin House's YA Fiction Workshop in 2021. They currently live in the South with their family and two mischievous cats.
But the house has other plans. Night after night, Jade wakes up paralyzed. The walls exude a thrumming sound, while bugs leave their legs and feelers in places they don't belong. She finds curious traces of her ancestors in the gardens they once tended. And at night Jade can't ignore the ghost of the beautiful bride who leaves her cryptic warnings: Don't eat.
Neither Ba nor her sweet sister Lily believe that there is anything strange happening. With help from a delinquent girl, Jade will prove this house - the home her family has always wanted - will not rest until it destroys them. Maybe, this time, she can keep her family together. As she roots out the house's rot, she must also face the truth of who she is and who she must become to save them all.
SHE IS A HAUNTING is a heady, twisty mix of the real and the surreal, intensely atmospheric and immersive and lyrical. Trang Tranh Tran's story is both so universal and yet so culturally specific, a rich exploration of place and history and familywhat it means to belong, and how one is defined (or not defined) by this sense of belonging. Jade's perspective on colonialism, her feelings of being an outsider, her struggles with her identity, her sexuality, her responsibilities to her family, friends, selfthese layered, complex themes are all deftly woven together, a perfect, grounding contrast to the horrors of the house and its inhabitants. This novel is many things, inspiring and heartbreaking, utterly chilling, and even swoony against all odds; it is a story that is not easily forgotten, a story that will prickle at the edges of your mind far past the last page.
Trang Thanh Tran is a queer Vietnamese American writer telling all stories scary, otherworldly, and emotional for young adults and adults. They are an alum o the Writing Barn's Rainbow Weekend 2020 and Tin House's YA Fiction Workshop in 2021. They currently live in the South with their family and two mischievous cats.
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Book
Published 2023-02-28 by Bloomsbury |