A Palace Near the Wind

Praise for Ai Jiang: “Ai Jiang’s Linghun is the ache that follows after every funeral, when the mourners are gone and nothing is left but the haunting of memories. A ruthlessly precise meditation on what grief does to the heart, Linghun is a must-read if you enjoy crying your way through every chapter of a book.” Cassandra Khaw, USA Today bestselling author of Nothing But Blackened Teeth “Ai Jiang probes the very notion of ghosts to offer us something far more haunting: it is the living who we should fear the most, where the boundless parameters of our own grief lay down the blueprint for an altogether new Hill House to inhabit.” Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Ghost Eaters “The neighborhood in Linghun is a twisted-neck demon, forever looking backward at the ghosts and ghosts-to-be. Ai Jiang builds an altar of the flawed living and the perfect dead with an unflinching eye for death-cloaked domestic tragedy. A haunting, brilliant debut.” Hailey Piper, Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of Queen of Teeth “A devastating parable of loss, Ai Jiang’s Linghun is a meditation on grief, how it changes us, makes ghosts of the living, and keeps us trapped in prisons of mourning. It’s a testament to Jiang’s ferocity as a lyricist of sorrow and heartbreak that I read this book in one sitting and expect it will haunt me for a very, very long time to come. Truly remarkable.” Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award®-winning author of Kin and Sour Candy “Eerie and palpable with unrequited longing, Linghun is a quiet tour de force, a diasporic ghost story of half-life, family, and deferred dreams. Ai Jiang’s writing is fiercely evocative and resounds with meaning and clarity. Linghun is tale that lingers.” —Lee Murray, four-time Bram Stoker Award®-winner and author of Tortured Willows “A somber, but beautiful story, about grief and the pain of memory. The ghosts stay with us long after Ai Jiang’s Linghun is over, but they remind us of the gift we have that is to be alive. —Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award®-nominated author of Children of Chicago “Ai Jiang’s debut novella Linghun packs an absolute punch. A reflection on grief, the dangers of not letting go, on the terrible price of love – and why we’re so willing to pay it. Wonderful, strange and heartbreaking. Highly recommended.” A.G. Slatter, Award-winning author of The Briar Book of the Dead “Mother believes the dead deserve our full attention–Linghun asks us whether that’s at the expense of the living. A dark, wise, and heartbreaking examination of grief and yearning, family and agency.” Premee Mohamed, Nebula award-winning author of the Beneath the Rising trilogy “Linghun will forever wander like a ghost in the halls of my reader’s heart, it’s message of grief and loss lingers, the beauty of Ai Jiang’s prose a treasured new voice. What a haunting debut.” Sadie Hartmann 'Mother Horror'