Water Ghosts by Shawna Yang Ryan

Title: Water Ghosts

Author: Shawna Yang Ryan

Type: Audiobook
Narrator: Laural Merlington
Genre: Fiction

Series: No

Copyright: 2009
Publisher:Tantor Media

Rating: 2 out of 5


Summary: from GoodReads
 Locke, California, 1928. Three bedraggled Chinese women suddenly appear out of the mist one afternoon in a small Chinese farming town on the Sacramento River, and their arrival throws the community into confusion. Two of the women are unknown to the townspeople, while the third is the long-lost wife of Richard Fong, the handsome manager of the local gambling parlor, who had left her behind in China many years earlier and had not yet returned for her. Richard's wife's unexpected arrival complicates his life in no small way-not least with two prostitutes at the local brothel he frequents. One, the beautiful young Chloe, depends on him but has eyes for someone else, someone even more forbidden: the local preacher's daughter. The other, Poppy, the psychic madam of the brothel, is desperately in love with Richard, and she begins to sink into despair as he grows further and further away from her.

As the lives of the townspeople become inextricably intertwined with the newly arrived women, Poppy's premonitions begin to foretell a deep unhappiness for all involved. And when a flood threatens the livelihood of the entire town, the frightening power of these mysterious women who arrived in the mist will be revealed.

Feelings:
The story could have been every interesting but it lacked something. I couldn't say exactly what it was that was missing. Maybe I just wasn't invested in the characters and thus didn't care what happened to them. I think that maybe the problem was that we jumped between many characters and didn't stick with just one. I might have cared more about them if there had been less jumping back and forth from one to the next. I did come to like some of the characters but the outcome didn't effect them so their story wasn't really changed at the end.

Chloe a white prostitute in a Chinese town doesn't understand many of the legends and beliefs that come from China with the immigrants. When the three women show up it affects her only in that she is no longer visited by Richard and must learn to really sell herself. She isn't interested in this and longs to leave the town. I think if this had been Chloe's story it might have worked but it isn't her story it is Richard and his wife and the two women that show up out of the river with her.

My feeling is that it could have been a very interesting story but it had to big a focus and placed importance on characters that maybe should have been minor characters. It just didn't work for me.