Clever, ambitious Ji Lin is a seamstress, a ballroom girl in the moonlight, helping to pay off her mother's mahjong debt. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves a cruel memory, Ji Lin can finally get the adventure she longs for.
The eleven-year-old boy, Ren, is also on a mission to fulfill the dying wish of his former master: that Ren finds the finger of the man he had lost years ago in an accident and buried him in his body. Ren has 49 days, or the soul of his Lord will walk forever on earth.
As the days go by, a series of unexplained deaths raid the district, along with a whisper of men turning into tigers. Ji Lin and Ren's increasingly dangerous trails criss-cross lush plantations, hospital storehouses, and ghostly dreamscapes.
Yangsze Choo's The Night Tiger takes us into a world of servants and masters, ancient superstition and modern idealism, sibling rivalry and forbidden love. However, anchoring this dazzling, impelling novel is the intimate coming of a child and a young woman, each seeking their place in a society that prefers to remain invisible.