Release Date: October 22, 2024
Publisher: Titan Books
Where to Buy: Bookshop
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Plot
Eleven-year-old Bata has been plagued by nightmares since surviving a fall into a cavern. Her father is ready to send her away when, on the night before her cousin’s wedding, Bata is revealed to be a Ghost Bride Sentinel. She is connected to the spectral world and must learn to wield her ghostly abilities. She is taken by Mmuọ-Ka-Mmuọ, the ghost collector of the spirit realm, to Ibaja-La, the realm of the dead brides. She meets ghost brides from around the world who died before their wedding days. Some are kind, some are malevolent, determined to reunite with their beloveds. Bata is trained in Ibaja-La to fight the evil ghost brides so she can return to the human realm to protect the women of her village.
My Thoughts
This book was beautifully written and had me captivated from beginning to end. Bata’s struggle with her fear of the ghost brides and her newfound powers, and her desire to help her family and make her father proud is a struggle most can relate to, metaphorically anyway. The scenery Onoh details had me feeling as if I were truly there, right alongside Bata.
Inner struggle is a common theme across literature because it is a common theme in our lives. We all must face things that are scary or unknown at some point in our lives. While we may not be fighting off ghost brides to keep the women of our villages from being possessed or killed, that doesn’t make what we face any less terrifying.
Bata is a child. Something that the members of her village seem to forget as soon as the word spreads that she has this power. In the course of a couple of days, her childhood is stripped from her and she is inundated with a responsibility most adults wouldn’t want. I feel for Bata in this story. Onoh truly captures the emotions that would be running through anyone saddled with such a fate.
Rating
4.5/5
Alicia Coast 