Do you like your horror extra dark and steamy and gay?
Then consider accepting author Lianyu Tan’s invitation to 1920s Singapore, a bustling tropical entrepôt teeming with vampires, pontianaks and the British. Your entry point is Teo Gean Choo, a young gay woman trying to make something of herself in a world that’s filled with tantalizing possibilities yet fraught with danger. Desperation and determination to rid herself of her family’s debt steers her toward a job offer as a maidservant at the Edevane House, where she will work directly for a mysterious English woman of some social standing who is pointedly… nocturnal.
Things Are Gonna Get Dark
Fair warning that Tan is not a fan of pulling her punches. The novel comes with a laundry list of content warnings which range from the historical, like opium smoking, to the ruinously violent, such as acquired brain injuries. There’s also full-on rape. It’s not an exaggeration to say that the monsters in The Wicked And The Willing behave like true monsters. Though they may have been human at some point, they’ve since put things like a functioning conscience far, far behind them.
***mild spoilers after the jump!***
Grim Tidings
150 years after Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla was first released, The Wicked And The Willing was published in 2022. Carmilla’s influence is clear in Wicked.
Wicked has all of the main ingredients of what made Carmilla great. There are also a whole bunch of new flavours to boot, which make Wicked an intimately familiar, yet very different beast. Kind of meeting somebody new who has vibes that suggest otherwise. Gean Choo, unlike Laura, doesn’t have much stability in her life, or people she can depend on. She doesn’t have a guaranteed roof over her head, much less any matronly governesses, a devoted father or any medical experts who also happened to be well-versed in supernatural afflictions. Gean Choo is put in an extremely vulnerable position from the beginning and Tan continuously hints at darker things to come. Poor Gean Choo.
In one of my favourite scenes in any book, Gean Choo turns to Carmilla for answers. I was reminded of how Liv Moore from iZombie turned to The Walking Dead for clues on what to do when she suspects she may have become undead.
Gean Choo is utterly engrossed as she frantically speed-reads Carmilla for research purposes. In her nocturnal employer’s study. When said employer is asleep. The subject matter obviously scares and excites her, plus it might be only lesbian text she’s ever seen. Once the sun sets, Mrs. Edevane reads her and then immediately creeps up on her. She then casually tells her that her favourite part of Carmilla is when titular character describes her love as a cruel, selfish love because “love is always cruel” and “love will have its sacrifices.” Then she seduces her. Without saying too much, Carmilla’s words definitely ring true when it comes to Mrs. Edevane’s personal philosophy on love.
Why You Should Read It
If you loved Carmilla and have a thing for doomed romances and horrible things happening to good people, keep reading. This is not at all to say that Wicked is a miserable experience, or that it is gratuitously horrifying for no reason. The characters here are extremely well-written and their motivations felt real and grounded, even if the world they live in doesn’t operate quite like what we’re used to. The writing is also impeccable and transports you to Singapore in the late 1920s effortlessly.
Singapore, together with Malaysia, was then part of the Straits Settlements, a British Crown colony. If you’re from the region, you will appreciate the interplay of the different languages that is part and parcel of daily life. People here still talk like that -- it’s incredibly common to hear a conversation between two friends that is nominally in English, but interspersed with words from different languages. As somebody of Malaysian origin, Tan also fills Wicked with mentions of regional dishes and condiments such as mee siam, belacan and blood tofu.
As a protagonist, Gean Choo is fairly young at nineteen and quite naïve. But she is also resolute and unafraid of hard work. Braver than she has any right to be, she is a sincere young woman who wears her heart on her sleeve. It is really hard not to root for her, even as she continually flirts with danger itself. Po Lam, the majordomo at Edevane House, is in some ways her polar opposite. Reticent, jaded and all too aware that threats far bigger than gangsters lurk in Singapore’s dark underbelly, Po Lam is also steadfast. She’s loyal to Mrs. Edevane, who is in many ways if not her foster mother, then something akin to a foster aunt. Yet, recent and not-so-recent events have galvanized her to start thinking about leaving Edevane House behind.
Then, there is Mrs. Edevane herself, whose heart is so dark that it’s quite impenetrable. Tan does an amazing job of writing a vampire who is full of contradictions. She’s powerful but chooses to starve herself, which may or may not have contributed to actions further down the road. She has powers of healing which but first she needs to hurt you in order to make you better. Mrs. Edevane is also apparently a fan of free will but watches Gean Choo closely, jealously -- she clearly feels like Gean Choo belongs to her in some way. Though Mrs. Edevane may be an immortal being, Tan also excels at showing us the limits of her power and that even for the likes of her, there is danger out there. After all, even your boss has a boss who has a boss.
Wicked invites us to sit with uncomfortable questions as dangers yet unmet loom overhead. Once we learn Mrs. Edevane’s true nature, something that is clear to everyone except Gean Choo early on, Tan repeatedly urges us to question just what Mrs. Edevane is capable of. Does Mrs. Edevane truly see Gean Choo as a person? Is she evil? Is there still something in her that is capable of love? Was Carmilla just a novella in Tan’s world or did Mrs. Edevane actually brush shoulders with the vampire Carmilla Karnstein is based on? How far can Mrs. Edevane push her kindred until they rein her in?
🩸 Fun Facts 🩸
Mrs. Edevane tells Gean Choo that her favourite part of Carmilla is page 143. Apart from selfish love, Carmilla also speaks of unknowable jealousy. This foreshadows Mrs. Edevane’s decision to fire her gardener after watching Gean Choo have a lively conversation with him.
Blood tofu is used in an ingenious way in Wicked, to demonstrate Mrs. Edevane’s desire for uh, a more restrained lifestyle when it comes to feeding while incorporating local flavour. However, blood tofu has been illegal in Singapore for decades. The ban is likely linked to a ban on pig blood since 1999.
Tanjong Katong, where Edevane House is located, used to be by the sea before land reclamation works in the 1960s and 1970s transformed gradually into Marine Parade. From the late 1800s to the early 1900s, many wealthy landowners built their seaside villas and manors there.
This is less of a fun fact and more of a head canon. In my mind, when I see Po Lam, I basically see Brigitte Lin from Peking Opera Blues (1986), which was set in 1910s Beijing and directed by Tsui Hark.
Lord Cottesley is clearly a Ventrue; he’s a picky eater and in love with the sound of his own voice.
This book has three endings! And all of them are good. Not good endings, as in, everyone lives happily ever after but endings where each of Gean Choo’s choices lead to scenarios which are completely believable and beautifully written.
Readability: 5/5
Plot: 5/5
Longing: 5/5
Overall: 5/5
5 out 5 virgin sacrifices, as a certain Countess Karnstein might say.
