Jess’s involvement with her grandmother and the goddess – either of whom might take over her body and lend her unexpected strength – leads to some harrowing confrontations with corporate gangsters, including an attempted rape and murder which some readers might find disturbing, but also to an odd near-alliance with the son of the predatory real estate developer.Īlong with the supernatural elements is the tale of Jess’s own family, which is compelling in its own way. Ah Ma has failed or refused to move on because of unfinished business, some of which involves a real estate magnate whose latest development involves destroying the shrine of a local goddess, the Black Water Sister of the title. Not long after, she begins hearing a distinct voice in her head, which turns out to be her recently deceased grandmother Ah Ma, a delightful cross between a cantankerous meddling relative and a more ominous manipulative spirit. Jess Teoh, an unemployed Harvard grad who had moved to the US as a child, has to return to Malaysia with her parents after her father loses his job, mostly as a result of a serious illness. That is not to suggest that the novel lacks supernatural fireworks. As much as we might have enjoyed her version of Regency England, those of us unfamiliar with Malaysia come away from Black Water Sister practically feeling we could make our way around Cho’s vivid portrait of Penang without a guidebook. If she was playing with Regency romances in those earlier novels or with wuxia traditions in her novella The Order of the Pure Moon Reflected in Water, here she’s writing in a voice that is utterly contemporary, with a setting that derives from acute character observation rather than historical invention. With its contemporary setting, family tensions, and issues ranging from cultural homophobia to predatory real estate development, it may seem a departure for admirers of the Sorcerer Royal novels, but in fact it rings closer to home than almost anything I’ve seen from this talented author. The stories in that collection were rich in Malaysian and Chinese lore, and so is Cho’s new novel Black Water Sister.

Malaysian magic played a more central role in the sequel The True Queen, but none of this should have surprised readers of Cho’s first book, the Crawford Award-winning Spirits Abroad, which will be reissued later this year in an expanded edition from Small Beer Press. Zen Cho quickly earned a reputation for wit and style with her debut novel Sorcerer to the Crown, with its entertaining but sharp critique of racism, sexism, and colonialism in Regency England, but the novel also introduced a powerful Malaysian witch.

Black water sister zen cho