I’m featuring indie and small press books as frequently as I can this year, and Hundred Ghost Soup was a true find. It’s an adorable story that I got as an ebook from Bookbud. I liked it so much I bought a hard copy to pass around to everyone I know.

In the young adult (YA) novel, Hundred Ghost Soup, a young man, Bei Jimo, is plucked out of his orderly, humdrum life at Thousand Blossoms Social Welfare Institute when he is unexpectedly adopted right before his eighteenth birthday by mysterious benefactors, Mr. and Mrs. Vulpin. Bei brings us along for the train ride as he navigates ghosts, curses, the Taoist pantheon, fox spirits, and communist-China bureaucracy to implement Mr. Vulpin’s complicated plan to save a strange, isolated village.

The book seamlessly weaves folk-tale elements with a modern, yet otherworldly setting. The voice is spot on for a young Chinese man, at least to this mature American ear. I didn’t love the present tense, but understand that is how YA things are done. I most liked the plucky orphan protagonist and his tricky adoptive father.

A big shout-out to this small press, Curiosity Quills Press, for its high production values. Good job by copy editor, graphics people, and book design crew. It’s a slick, well edited, professional book.