Chasing Moonflowers by Pauline Chow, Review: Gothic Horror Meets 1925 Hong Kong

Chasing Moonflowers by Pauline Chow Review: Gothic Horror Meets 1925 Hong Kong

Chow has crafted something unique here, a historical fantasy that uses its fangs to critique history, a horror story where the most terrifying monster might be the system itself. It’s flawed, yes. Overstuffed, perhaps. But it’s also vibrant, intelligent, and dripping with a dread that feels all too relevant. It’s the kind of story that sticks in your mind like the scent of a strange flower.

You know that particular kind of damp that seeps into a story, the one that chills you even when you’re reading under a midday sun? That’s the first thing Chasing Moonflowers delivers. It’s not just a setting; it’s a saturation. 1925 Hong Kong isn’t a backdrop here.

It’s a character, sweating with the tension of the Canton labour strikes, breathing the cloying scent of exotic herbs and colonial decay. You feel the grime of the Kowloon Walled City, sense the performative gentility of the private academy halls. Pauline Chow, an herbalist-in-training herself, makes you smell the dried chrysanthemum and taste the bitter medicinal brews Ling Shaw handles in her uncle’s shop.

It’s visceral. But for some, that vividness had edges that felt a little out of focus. A few readers on the early review circuit wished for more, more architectural detail, more texture to the streets, feeling the novel sometimes leaned on a reader’s prior knowledge or imagination to fill in the colonial landscape. The atmosphere is thick as fog, but a few wanted the bricks and mortar of the city to be just as solid.

Ling Shaw is the reason you stay in that fog, even when things start moving in the shadows. She’s not a sword-wielding chosen one. Her weapons are knowledge and a dogged, desperate love for her family. When her uncle is arrested for a murder she knows was committed by a creature from a nightmare, a vampiric thing that leaves petals in a corpse’s mouth, her investigation is one of research and herbal lore.

She scours texts. She decipheres her uncle’s secrets. It’s a refreshing, brainy kind of bravery. She’s caught between worlds: her traditional family, her Western-style education, the elitist “ghosts” (her community’s term for foreigners), and the gritty reality of the city’s underworld. Her allies mirror this conflict: a friend from the privileged colonial class and a thug from the Red Society with a complicated past. The dynamics here are charged, shot through with unspoken feelings and historical baggage that are often more compelling than the supernatural threat.

Ah, the supernatural threat. Here’s where the book truly flexes its gothic muscles. Chow doesn’t just give you a vampire. She builds a cosmology. There are vampire-like Gwai, yes, but also Chinese hungry ghosts, cosmic whispers from the Guianas, and a creeping, almost Lovecraftian sense of something utterly alien waiting in the wings.

It’s a dizzying, ambitious tapestry weaving together Eastern and Western horror tropes to ask a central, brilliant question: What makes a real monster? The narrative cleverly critiques its own genre, with Ling noting that while the European vampire in Camilla is portrayed as cultured and refined, the monsters of her own legends are depicted as inherently foul and beastly. The beast, the story suggests, is often just a mask for racism, for colonialism, for the brutal exploitation happening in plain sight.

But weaving such a dense tapestry is tricky business. More than one reviewer found themselves lost in the final act, as the many mythic and familial threads Chow introduced suddenly pulled taut. The pacing, so carefully built, can sprint when you might want it to walk, leaving behind a faint sense of narrative whiplash.

Let’s talk about the body horror. Because it’s there, and it’s graphic. This isn’t suggestive spookiness. Chow writes with a visceral, unflinching hand. We’re talking about ripped-out eyes, putrid sludge oozing from skulls, and a general sense of bodily violation that would feel at home in a Stephen King novel. It’s not gratuitous, though. I

t serves the themes. The horror is in the invasion, the theft, the literal gouging out of essence. When a creature collects eyes, it’s collecting sight, perspective, and identity. In a story about colonialism, which itself is a violent extraction, the body horror becomes a powerful, grotesque metaphor. Consider this your content warning: the gore is present and purposeful, intertwining with themes of medical trauma and violation.

So, who is this for? It’s a gothic lover’s feast, no doubt. If you cherish atmosphere over breakneck action, if you like your horror rooted in real-world injustice, if you want a protagonist who uses her mind as her primary tool, you’ll find much to adore. It’s also, somewhat surprisingly, been noted as a strong intro to gothic horror for younger readers ready to step beyond the tame.

Fans of These Violent Delights or the moody historical fantasies of authors like T. Kingfisher will likely sink into this world with relish. But if you demand airtight, perfectly streamlined plots where every thread is neatly tied, the ambitious, occasionally chaotic sprawl of Chasing Moonflowers might frustrate you. It’s a book that prioritises mood, theme, and character complexity over narrative convenience.

In the end, the lingering feeling isn’t about a neatly solved mystery. It’s an atmosphere. A haunting. The question of what we become to protect what we love, and where the line between human and monster truly bleeds. Chow has crafted something unique here, a historical fantasy that uses its fangs to critique history, a horror story where the most terrifying monster might be the system itself. It’s flawed, yes. Overstuffed, perhaps. But it’s also vibrant, intelligent, and dripping with a dread that feels all too relevant. It’s the kind of story that sticks in your mind like the scent of a strange flower.

Chasing Moonflowers by Pauline Chow

“A dazzling blend of fantasy intrigue and historical drama that will haunt readers long after the final page.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
BEST OF INDIE BOOKS 2025, TOP 100 INDIE BOOKS, Kirkus Reviews Magazine (December 2025)
RECOMMENDED INDIE BOOK, Kirkus Reviews Magazine (September 2025)

In 1925 colonial Hong Kong, young herbalist Ling Shaw witnesses a murder committed by a bloodthirsty creature. When her uncle is wrongfully arrested for the crime, she is the only one who can clear her family’s name and find the real killer.

Ling joins forces with her private academy friend and a reckless Red Society thug from the Kowloon Walled City. The search for answers stirs personal feelings she can’t quite name yet. Together, they uncover dark family secrets, occult rituals, and a vampire’s curse. But as they dig deeper, they realize the murder is only part of a sinister plot to bring down the Canton Labor Strikes. As ancient horrors awaken and revolution brews, Ling must decide who she really is, what she truly wants, and everything she holds dear.

A gothic historical fantasy perfect for fans of These Violent Delights, T. Kingfisher, and Enola Holmes, Chasing Moonflowers is a coming-of-power tale that asks: What truly makes a monster?

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