The Friday 56 (With Book Beginnings): The Girl with Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson + 50/50 Friday

Welcome to The Friday 56, a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice.

These are the rules:

1. Grab a book, any book.

2. Turn to page 56, or 56% on your eReader.
3. Find any sentence (or a few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.
4. Post it.
5. Add the URL to your post in the link on Freda's most recent Friday 56 post.

I'm also taking part in Book Beginnings, a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader.  The rules are pretty simple - you share the first sentence or so and your initial thoughts, impressions, or whatever else it inspires.  Don't forget to link up your post's url with Rose City Reader.

This week I'm spotlighting one of my current reads, The Girl with Ghost Eyes (Xian Li-lin #1) by M.H. Boroson.  This novel will fulfill the fifth task of Book Riot's 2017 Read Harder Challenge which is to read a book by an immigrant or with a central immigration narrative.  It's an action-packed historical fantasy novel featuring a young Chinese immigrant in 1890s San Francisco's Chinatown who is the daughter of a famous Daoshi exorcist and ghost hunter, but she bears the shame of having yin eyes.  With these eyes, she can see the spirit world and have visions.  I'm not that far into it yet, but I have a feeling that I'm going to love it!  I've had my eyes on this for quite a while and this challenge is giving me an excuse to get started on it.

Beginning: 

I placed a paper shirt into the furnace.  The shirt was painted to resemble dark linen, broad at the shoulders, with buttons down the front.  It was a fine shirt, but not too fine, the kind of shirt a hardworking immigrant would wear to dinner.  Nothing about it would catch a devil's eye.

56:

A few moments later he came stumbling out of a cloud of steam on the ground.  "Marvelous," he said.  "Simply marvelous.  What do they call that?"

"That's steam," I told him.  "It comes out of hot water.  There are people inside that basement, and they use the water to wash laundry.  The water gives off steam, and the steam rises through that vent you found."

"Steam," said the eyeball spirit.  "I'll have to remember that.  But what is this 'hot water' you mentioned?"

"Come on, Mr. Yanqiu," I said with a smile.  "Let's go back to Father's apartment, and I'll heat you a cup of tea."

This week I'm also taking part in a brand new linkup called 50/50 Friday, which is hosted by Carrie @ The Butterfly Reader and Laura @ Blue Eye Books.  Every week they'll have a new topic featuring two sides of the same coin - this week the topic is Best/ Worst Queen or King Character (Good/ Evil).

Best (Good): 

Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

Worst (Evil): 

Levanna from The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer