It’s been a minute since I listened to an audiobook, I was struggling to focus but this one caught my attention.
The Formidable Miss Cassidy
Meihan Boey
Miss Cassidy is no ordinary governess.
She can tutor the most wayward child, tell stories in multiple languages and fix any household crisis. But she also deals with problems of a far more dark and dangerous kind.
Arriving in 1890s Singapore, this formidable, flame-haired Scotswoman soon finds herself (among other things) ridding a house of a bloodthirsty demon and raising a spirit from the dead. But when she is hired by the wealthy Chinese widower Mr Kay, whose family is suffering from a terrible curse, she must battle forces far more ancient and powerful than any she has encountered – not to mention the unexpected impulses of her own heart…
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I love it when I come across an audiobook that I can immerse myself in and this was one of them. I loved how unexpected this story was for me, I knew there would be a little bit of magic in this story but I didn’t expect it to be so fantastical. It caught me off guard but in the best way.
The book is set in 1890s Singapore and I loved the Malay folklore that was explored in the story. It captured my attention because I had never encountered them before and it helped make the setting come alive. I also liked that there was the appearance of some Celtic folklore but that both were brought together in an interesting way.
Something I quite liked about this story was that it is in three parts with a focus on different families but they are all acquainted so you can see how they progress from one section to the next. This does mean that there maybe isn’t an obvious driving plotline throughout the whole story but I enjoyed her getting to know each family and the different customs and traditions, so that didn’t bother me.
One thing I will say is that in the third part, as Miss Cassidy discusses her history, it became clearer to me why the story is put together this way and it made me appreciate it a little more. There is only maybe one little complaint I have about the format of the story, it is possibly due to my listening to this as an audiobook as I can’t tell if I would have felt the same if I read it on the page.
At one point in the story, it leapt from one pretty dire scene for Miss Cassidy to her in a completely different place. I thought I maybe hadn’t been paying attention and lost track of what the narrator had said. However, I soon realised that it had switched quite suddenly and what transpires for Miss Cassidy to go from this extreme situation to a different place altogether is revealed further into the third part. It was a little confusing in this format and took me out of the story a little as I jumped back to make sure I hadn’t missed a bit.
The narrator, Paula Masterton, was amazing and brought the story to life. She managed to create unique voices for all the characters even though they came from a range of nationalities.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I would be very happy to go on some more adventures with Miss Cassidy, she is a wonderful character.
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