In the mountains of Northern China ancient custom demands that every man have a wife to keep him company in the afterlife. Deshi Li's brother is dead--and unmarried. Which means that Deshi must find him an eligible body before the week is up. Lily Chen, sweet as a snakebite, needs money and a fast ride out of town. Haunted by the gods of their ancestors and the expectations of the new world, Deshi and Lily embark on a journey with two very different destinations in mind. They travel through a land where the ground is hard and the graves, where marriage can be murder and where Lily Chen is wanted--dead and live.
