The Formidable Miss Cassidy - The Library of the Uncommons

eBook

English language

Published Sept. 1, 2022 by Epigram Books.

ISBN:: 978-981-4901-89-5
ISFDB ID:: 2900790

(2 reviews)

In 1890s Singapore, the formidable Miss Leda Cassidy arrives as paid companion to Sarah Jane Bendemeer, whose family suffers under the thrall of Southeast Asia's most terrifying hantu. But there's more to Miss Cassidy than meets the eye, and she's faced down worse in her life than a pontianak.However, she may have met her match in the indefatigable businessman, Mr Kay Wing Tong, whose large and constantly-growing family clearly requires female supervision—especially of the particular kind Miss Cassidy can provide. Ill omens and strange happenings surround Mr Kay and his colourful family, and Miss Cassidy must find a way to defend the ones she has learned to love.

2 editions

Annie the Book reviewed The Formidable Miss Cassidy by Meihan Boey

The Formidable Miss Cassidy, by Meihan Boey

3 stars

Miss Leda Cassidy is a woman with a special set of skills, skills she has honed over a long time. These skills are not what one would normally expect of a gentile Irish lady who takes the odd job as a companion or tutor to the upper classes but, in Meihan Boey’s charming novel The Formidable Miss Cassidy, turn out to be surprisingly useful. We get to see Miss Cassidy’s skills on display in two supernatural adventures that blend European and Southeast Asian magic and myths, adventures that Miss Cassidy pulls off with an understated Victorian aplomb...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.

Soh Kam Yung reviewed The Formidable Miss Cassidy by Meihan Boey

Western and Eastern spirits and goddesses come alive in Singapore.

4 stars

An entertaining book set in the 1890s Singapore. Miss Cassidy arrives to become a companion for Sarah Jane Bendemeer, whose family has recently suffered the loss of her mother and siblings. Miss Cassidy is slowly revealed to be more than just an English Lady in an Asian Country, when she investigates and learns the cause of the tragedy: a local spirit, the Pontianak, who has come to haunt the family.

Just who Miss Cassidy is really is not yet fully revealed, but enough is shown that she can converse with local spirits and even goddesses to learn just what must be done to remove the threat to the Bendemeer family.

But that is only half of the book. The other half concerns the family of Mr Kay Wing Tong, who hires her to become an English tutor to his family. Mr Kay himself develops a curious conversational relation with Miss …

An entertaining book set in the 1890s Singapore. Miss Cassidy arrives to become a companion for Sarah Jane Bendemeer, whose family has recently suffered the loss of her mother and siblings. Miss Cassidy is slowly revealed to be more than just an English Lady in an Asian Country, when she investigates and learns the cause of the tragedy: a local spirit, the Pontianak, who has come to haunt the family.

Just who Miss Cassidy is really is not yet fully revealed, but enough is shown that she can converse with local spirits and even goddesses to learn just what must be done to remove the threat to the Bendemeer family.

But that is only half of the book. The other half concerns the family of Mr Kay Wing Tong, who hires her to become an English tutor to his family. Mr Kay himself develops a curious conversational relation with Miss Cassidy. And it is in this role as a tutor that Miss Cassidy is finally revealed as who she is, as yet another local spirit haunts the Kay family, and it would need all of her power and quick thinking to help save the day.

The people in the story show an acceptance for spirits that may or may not affect their lives in Singapore. The book itself is a delightful mix of Western and Asian culture and mythology as goddesses and spirits from several pantheons, Western, Indian, Southeast Asia and Eastern Asia, mix together to test their wills and strengths against each other.