Weeping Maid

In seventeenth-century Hanyang, Seoryeon, 22, is a gokbi, a bonded servant rented out to wail at funerals so the families don't have to. She is good at it because she can reach real grief when she needs to, and she hoards her own. She is saving to ransom her little brother Doli from the Late Lantern, the funeral-goods shop whose owner, Mistress Oh, holds both siblings' deeds. She has a secret: when her wail is sincere, the dead answer through her. Every ghost she carries takes something from her, first her grief, then her sense of pain and taste.At a rice merchant's wake, a corpse whispers two words in her ear: Pale House. It is the name she last heard just before her mother, Dalrae, vanished twelve years ago. Taehyeon, a precise, insomniac young inspector who believes only in what can be written down, has been investigating three suspicious deaths and saw her use knowledge only the dead man could have. He offers a bargain: help him gather evidence, and he will pay toward Doli's ransom.