Description from Goodreads
A powerful Nigeria-set tale of possession, malevolent ghosts, family tensions, secrets and murder from the recipient of the Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement and 'Queen of African Horror'.
Bata, an eleven-year-old girl tormented by nightmares, wakes up one night to find herself standing sentinel before her cousin's door. Her skin, hair, and eyes have turned a dazzling white colour, which even the medicine-man can't heal. Her cousin is to get married the next morning, but only if she can escape the murderous attack of a ghost-bride, who used to be engaged to her groom.
Through the night, Bata battles the vengeful ghost and finally vanquishes it before collapsing. On awakening, she has no recollection of the events. And when the medicine-man tries to exorcise the entities clinging to her body as a result of her supernatural possession, Bata dies on the exorcism mat. There begins her journey. She is taken into Ibaja-La, the realm of dead brides, by Mmuọ-Ka-Mmuọ, the ghost-collector of the spirit realm. There she meets the ghosts of brides from every culture who died tragically before their weddings; both the kind and the malevolent. Bata is given secret powers to fight the evil ghost-brides before being sent back to the human realm, where she must learn to harness her new abilities as she strives to protect those whom she loves.
My Thoughts on the Book
I really enjoyed reading Where the Dead Brides Gather as the majority of characters were complex and/or had a backstory. There were also something about reading a spooky novel set in Nigeria and the duality of folklore and Christianity mixed it. It's perhaps more dark fantasy than horror in my eyes though. The storyline/plot was okay, even if where one part of the story that could have been left out in my opinion (one involving the stepmother), but perhaps that's just me.
Overall it was an enjoyable and fun read though, so I have no issues recommending it to people.
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