”Seeing the madam harbouring ghosts was the last thing she had expected.”
The story pacing has been incredibly slow, that I sort of can’t believe that it took until the halfway point to even make sense of the title of the book. I guess this brothel, Pavilion of Spring Buds, is the titular harbour of hungry ghosts, and the plot can finally begin here.
I can’t help but feel like with some editing, this could’ve easily been a standalone rather than a duology. So little has happened since Por Por disappeared, and the story seems to have forgotten that even happened because Kiamling and the other characters seem to be moving with zero urgency to try to find her or solve the mystery. We’ve just been wandering around, hanging out in tea houses, restaurants, horse races… so much story padding that just drags the momentum and places an odd amount of focus on the weird romance with Archie when I feel like things should be moving with higher stakes by now. It’s just been endless cycles of Kiamling goes somewhere new > Kiamling is rude and/or incompetent > Kiamling goes home and I’m so ready for some actual breakthroughs.
