About the Book
It’s the end of the Nineteenth Century. San Francisco’s cobblestone streets are haunted, but Chinatown has an unlikely protector in a young Daoist priestess named Li-lin. Using only her martial arts training, spiritual magic, a sword made from peachwood, and the walking, talking spirit of a human eye, Li-lin stands alone to defend her immigrant community from supernatural threats.
But when the body of a young girl is brought to the deadhouse Li-lin oversees for a local group of gangsters, she faces her most bewildering—and potentially dangerous—assignment yet. The nine-year-old has died from suffocation . . . specifically by flowers growing out of her nose and mouth. Li-lin suspects Gong Tau, a dirty and primitive form of dark magic. But who is behind the spell, and why, will take her on a perilous journey deep into a dangerous world of ghosts and spirits.
With hard historical realism and meticulously researched depictions of Chinese monsters and magic that have never been written about in the English language, The Girl with No Face draws from the action-packed cinema of Hong Kong to create a compelling and unforgettable tale of historical fantasy and Chinese lore.
383 pages
Published October 22, 2019
It had been a while since I read the first book in the Daoshi Chronicles, but as I read The Girl with no Face, the previous book's story came rushing back to me, which is a good thing since I'd long since returned that first book to the library and couldn't just pick it up and read it again. The Girl with no Face picks up very shortly after The Girl with Ghost Eyes, following the story of Li-lin, disgraced from her family for not following tradition, able to see spirits where others cannot. She's getting by, working for people who might not be the best to work for, but it's better than some alternatives. Much like last time, Li-lin has a mystery to solve in 19th century San Francisco's Chinatown, a mystery with consequences large enough to change the fate of the city.
I love historical fantasy, and I love books that take into account the fact that not all of history was white. The author himself may not be Chinese, but he's done extensive research into Chinese mythology and folklore, as well as the history of Chinese people in America, and woven all of that into a powerful tale that drives home not just the social aspects of that time and place, but also the spiritual history of the people. Some concessions have been made for storytelling, of course, but from what I've read, he's done his best to preserve authenticity while bringing things to Western eyes in an accessible way.
Here, Li-lin is asked to investigate the death of a girl who died due to flowers sprouting from her nose and mouth, a death which is decidedly unnatural. Her investigations lead her to her father, who seems to have played some role in the girl's life, and eventually to a much larger mystery wherein somebody is trying to influence the direction of San Francisco's development by way of turning a spirit into a god in a way that is definitely not the normal way of things. Honestly, it's a bit difficult to go into much detail about the book's story, as a lot of it relies on knowledge of Chinese folklore and mythology. You don't need to know all that before starting this series, as the books do a very good job of explaining things in a way that doesn't feel like characters just sitting down and putting on an exposition hat, but it does make recapping some of the plot feel very vague without information that would definitely be a spoiler for how some events play out. I don't want to ruin the story for anyone who hasn't read it yet.
I have to admire Boroson's ability to take seemingly random unconnected events in Li-lin's story and eventually connect them all together into a cohesive whole. Early mysteries like why the dead girl brought to Li-lin didn't seem to have a soul turned out to not be a huge part of the larger mystery but did lead her to the right place to find the next step in the larger mystery, and it wasn't some flimsy excuse to move the plot along so much as it was relevant but not game-changing, if that makes sense. Very frequently in the early sections of the book I wondered to myself, "Is the story going to go this way?" "Is this going to be the main focus?" only to be surprised when the story shifted directions subtly, like water flowing down a rocky stream. It's all part of the same whole, and the rocks may change the flow of the water, but it never stops being part of the stream.
I love seeing mysteries written like this. People encounter things every day that are relevant but not necessarily a driving force in something, so those little mini-mysteries felt very realistic.
Couched in historical fantasy and Chinese history and mythology, The Girl with no Face is, at its heart, a book about confronting and overcoming trauma. Every character has some trauma in their past, even the antagonist. Characters you disagree with are fighting similar internal battles as ones who you're meant to root for. Trauma doesn't excuse someone becoming a villain, but it can go a long way to explaining why someone does what they do. Li-lin has to work to overcome the trauma of feeling responsible for her mother's death, and the struggle of trying to be true to herself while also knowing that she deeply disappointed her father by doing so, to the point where he disowned her. Li-lin's father struggles to not connect strong women with the same strength of the female demon that took his wife from him. Characters struggle with being the last of their people after cultural genocide, with being former slaves, with secrets that might tear their family apart if they ever came to light. There is some very heavy material in this book, which is entirely how it should be when you're writing about overcoming trauma during a very traumatic time and situation.
It also deals heavily with prejudice. Not just the expected prejudice of white people treating Chinese people like garbage, but men being prejudiced against women, or Chinese people being prejudiced against any practices that aren't their own. Early on in the book, Li-lin suspects that Gong Tau, a sort of dark folk magic, might be behind the mystery of the flower-suffocated girl, but quickly comes to realize that the rituals of non-Chinese folk can be just as valid as the rituals she herself follows, and that Gong Tau is often just a sort of catch-all term for "spiritual stuff that isn't like ours and so we say it's bad." Nobody is exempt from accusations and presentations of prejudice; the protagonist isn't exempt from this and just automatically good and accepting simple because she's the protagonist. She has to confront and overcome her own misconceptions about other people, a personal struggle I think that many of us can relate to at some point in our lives.
I wouldn't recommend using this book as a completely authentic source of knowledge, because again, this is a work of fiction, but it is a great book to get ideas from about things you may want to learn more. I knew that Chinese workers often died building the railroads that spanned North America, and the incredible amount of racism they faced, but I didn't know about Chinese immigrants being essentially kidnapped and forced to work on plantations in South America. And now I want to learn more about that aspect of history. It's a good jumping-off point for future research, and also a good introduction to some cultural atrocities that many people may know nothing about. Some of this book's historical inspirations are downright horrifying, and I have to praise Boroson for bringing them to light in a way that may prompt readers to learn more later.
At least, I know it did that to me. I can only hope it did the same for others.
The Girl with no Face is an excellent follow-up to The Girl with Ghost Eyes, and I was really glad to see that the series was continued. As a standalone, The Girl with Ghost Eyes was good, but so much was left unresolved that it was wonderful to see a continuation of Li-lin's story. Fans of Chinese mythology will likely enjoy this whole series, as will fans of historical fantasy. It's got surprising depth to it, and was a bit of an intense read at times, but it was well worth it.