“The Formidable Miss Cassidy” by Meihan Boey
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Rating: 4/5 Stars
An entertaining book set in the 1890s Singapore. Miss Cassidy arrives to become a companion for Sarah Jane Bendemeer, whose family has recently suffered the loss of her mother and siblings. Miss Cassidy is slowly revealed to be more than just an English Lady in an Asian Country, when she investigates and learns the cause of the tragedy: a local spirit, the Pontianak, who has come to haunt the family.
Just who Miss Cassidy is really is not yet fully revealed, but enough is shown that she can converse with local spirits and even goddesses to learn just what must be done to remove the threat to the Bendemeer family.
But that is only half of the book. The other half concerns the family of Mr Kay Wing Tong, who hires her to become an English tutor to his family. Mr Kay himself develops a curious conversational relation with Miss Cassidy. And it is in this role as a tutor that Miss Cassidy is finally revealed as who she is, as yet another local spirit haunts the Kay family, and it would need all of her power and quick thinking to help save the day.
The people in the story show an acceptance for spirits that may or may not affect their lives in Singapore. The book itself is a delightful mix of Western and Asian culture and mythology as goddesses and spirits from several pantheons, Western, Indian, Southeast Asia and Eastern Asia, mix together to test their wills and strengths against each other.
Book read from 2024/08/17 to 2024/08/21