Showing results by author "Catherine Lim" in All Categories

There is a wonderful ancient Western tradition that allows a woman to propose to a man–but only on 29 February. Only once every four years, in a leap year. On such a momentous day, late one morning in modern day Singapore, young and beautiful Li-ann catches sight of Jeremy for the first time in a busy part of town. She realises with a start that he is her dream man and makes the move allowed by the Leap Year tradition. It is the most creative, imaginative and brilliant move any girl can think of. Jeremy is totally enthralled. Their first meeting is radiant with love's promise.

A boy is given a girl's name so that he can escape the attention of malignant ghouls. A devout Catholic priest is suspected of hanky-panky with a submissive Chinese wife when she gives birth to an albino child. A young girl student dies before her English examinations, but still manages to write an out-of-point essay for the Cambridge Syndicate. From societal superstitions and the imagination come these 15 tales of the paranormal.

Catherine Lim's free-wheeling imagination cheerfully dispenses with all constraints to tell stories of that other world. Written with an exaggerated sense of earnestness and caution, the eighteen tales in this collection elicit in the listener the very goosebumps of terror she had herself experienced as a child listening to such tales.