James Nicoll Reviews

Nuzo Onoh’s 2024 Where the Dead Brides Gather is a stand-alone horror novel.

Ten-year-old Bata has been plagued by nightmares ever since she suffered a serious accident. Then Bata discovers that the terrible dreams are but a precursor to the revelation of Bata’s supernatural potential.

Bata wakes one day to discover that she is chalk-white, even her eyes. In this transformed state, she confronts and defeats a dreadful specter intent on possessing her cousin Keziah, who is to be married the next day. From Bata’s perspective, she is but a spectator. Some great force is working through her.

In the aftermath of the event, village medicine man Dibia questions Bata closely, an interrogation complicated by the fact that Bata cannot remember just what happened. All of the facts point to a remarkable conclusion: Bata is a Bride-Sentinel.

Many women die before they can marry¹. Some become ghost-brides, who steal the experience of marriage by possessing brides on their wedding day. Having had a wedding, most ghost-brides then continue on to the afterlife. A few are evil, refusing to free their hosts. It is against this last group that the ten-year-old will contend.

The purification ritual to which Bata is subjected is interrupted by the sudden appearance of a fearsome entity. Mmuọ-Ka-Mmuọ is a Guardian of ghost-brides (one of a council). Her purpose is to ensure that Bata is properly prepared for her fate. To that end, she carries Bata’s soul off to Ijaba-La (an afterlife), leaving Bata’s corpse in the mortal realm.

Bata proves an exemplary Bride-Sentinel candidate, exceeding all expectations. Having proved herself, Bata is imbued with the Eight Faces of Destruction and her soul is then returned to her revived body.

Life imbued with divine power is no sinecure. The adults around her conspire to use Bata to their best advantage. As for Bata, she soon discovers that having power is one thing. Knowing how to use it without harming those she cares about is quite another.

~oOo~

Well, I hated this book. The reasons I hated it don’t necessarily reflect poorly on the book, given that it is billed as horror.

Reasons might be an overstatement. All of the plot developments I disliked boil down to ​“no adult with power in this novel ever demonstrates that they should be trusted with power².”Dibia, for example, is mainly interested in Bata for what he can obtain by controlling her. Bata’s father is benevolent when it suits him, but is a menace if frustrated or angered.

The Guardians are especially unsympathetic. Their approach to training Bata seems rather slapdash. They toss her in with ghost-brides to see if she can to spot the evil ringer amongst the innocent dead brides. They then saddle Bata with a power, the Faces of Destruction, and add some general guidelines — without any advice on just how to follow the guidelines.

In fact, what we learn about the Guardians, in particular the source of their power, is a cause for concern:

Our deities offered us eternal life and unrivalled powers if we sacrificed our grooms to them. Many of The Seekers declined the offer. We eight accepted, and on the appointed night, we offered the souls of our beloved grooms in exchange for unimaginable powers. We entered the next dawn following our great sacrifice and found ourselves transformed in every way, body, mind, and spirit. 

I cannot help but notice that every time the Guardians mention the sacrifice, the phrasing suggests that the Guardians were the ones who made a tragic sacrifice… when it was the grooms who made the greater sacrifice. This is just how powerful people (except for Bata) behave in this novel.

The entire novel is told from naive Bata’s point of view. Happily, for Bata, she does not always understand what is going on around her. The author’s skill is such that the readers will. The result is very much not my thing, although it might be yours.

Where the Dead Brides Gather is available here (Titan Books), here (Barnes & Noble), here (Bookshop US), here (Bookshop UK), here (Chapters-Indigo), and here (Words Worth Books).

1: Not all of the women who die before they can marry die because they were murdered, but this seems to be fairly common. If possession by the regretful dead is so common that an entire supernatural security apparatus is needed to manage the trend, the trend is alarming. It is somewhat mitigated by the suggestion that ghost-brides emerge across the whole planet.

On a perhaps related note, it’s a plot point that husbands can kill their wives for perceived affronts without consequence.

2: As good an excuse as any to toss in ​“USA delenda est.”