For No Mortal Creature

A 17-year-old combs the afterlife for a powerful weapon in this clever but convoluted Wuthering Heights riff from Chow (The Girl with No Reflection). While gathering herbs to heal her ailing grandmother, Jia strays too close to the land border separating her country, Jinghu Dao, from neighboring nation Yske, and is killed by an enemy soldier. Thankfully, Jia possesses the ability to self-resurrect—a fact she and handsome Yskian prince Essien both learn when she reanimates for the first time while inside his castle. Essien lets Jia leave after she promises to revisit the underworld and retrieve for him a fabled sword that can purportedly conquer death. Following losing her grandmother, however, Jia secretly hatches a new plan to find and use the sword to resurrect the old woman. But navigating the demon-infested death realm requires help from a resident ghost—namely that of Jia’s best friend and first love, Lin, who betrayed Jia before dying in a drunken brawl. Intersectionally diverse characters are slimly developed, and the jam-packed plot’s ample twists result in a read that’s often confusing. Nevertheless, rich and inventive worldbuilding inspired by Chinese folklore and mythology, conveyed via darkly funny first-person narration, make for an entertaining horror-tinged romantasy. Ages 14–up. (Oct.)