AI JIANG — Cyborg. Spirit. Writer.

Praise for Linghun

Listed in Book Riot‘s “12 SFF & Horror Debuts to Watch by in 2023” by K.W. Colyard

Listed in GEEKLYINC‘s “Most Anticipated Books of 2023” by Christina Ladd

“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 Awards®-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.”

—Angela Slatter, Award-winning author of The Path of Thorns

“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

“Ai Jiang’s Linghun is unlike any Gothic tale I have encountered before. Jiang has written a gripping, tragic and multi-faceted story of grief as: a prison, a comfort, a burden, a struggle, a violent act and yes, to some, a home. It is an incredibly intricate and layered study of how loss permeates our lives and shapes who we are. Brilliant and thoughtfully realized, Linghun and the people of “Home” have my heart and will haunt me for years to come.”

—Suzan Palumbo, Nebula Award Finalist

“LINGHUN is the book you should pick up when you want to spend a long night having your heart broken with supernatural grace. It’s literary horror’s catharsis for grief, for feeling lost, for our terror of failing and of being abandoned. I never doubted for a moment that I was being taken to a terrible place by a careful hand for a good reason; and everything from the prose to the structure tells you so the whole way. In the end, I’m left feeling lighter, and I expect years down the road, I’ll fully understand why.”

—Alex Woodroe, author of Whisperwood

“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

Jiang is a masterful storyteller, Linghun her stunning tapestry, thematically rich and intricately layered. It is a tale of love and loss and who gets left behind when we honor the dead over embracing the living. Like the ghosts in the tale, Linghun lingers—promising to live on in readers’ hearts and minds for years to come.

—Kelsea Yu, author of Bound Feet and The Bones Beneath Paris

“LINGHUN confronts the ways we dismantle, and sacrifice, ourselves to the dark loves that consume us. No ghost haunts like the spectre of grief, and Jiang forces us face the greater terrors we birth, when we feed our fears. LINGHUN is exquisite psychological horror in the tradition of Shirley Jackson, which fans of THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE will find a ready home in.”

—Eliane Boey, author of OTHER MINDS

REVIEWS

Reviewed by Wyatt Towns in Vogue Horror

Reviewed by R. Jean Mattieu

Reviewed by Julia C. Lewis