An action-packed YA contemporary fantasy debut that brings vibrant Malaysian folklore to life.
Intrigued? Read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Prodigal Tiger by Samantha Chong ahead of its release on March 17th 2026.
For five years, Caroline Chua has lived in exile from her home and family in Malaysia at a magical academy in New York City–far enough away that she can’t hurt the people she loves. That is until she is abruptly summoned home in an emergency—her beloved older brother, Aaron, who is next in line to become the Protector of the Island, has vanished. And now back in Penang, she can’t help but notice that things don’t feel the same as they once did and it’s unclear if she’s changed, or the island.
Despite her family’s desire to keep her close and the Council’s explicit instructions to stay out of trouble, stubborn, self-sufficient Caroline is hell-bent on saving her brother with or without anyone’s help. But when it turns out that Aaron has been kidnapped by vengeful ghosts with a centuries-old grudge, even Caroline must admit she’s in over her head and will need the help of the friends she had abandoned, including her first love, J.J.
The ghosts’ goals are simple: break the barriers between the ghost and mortal realms during the Hungry Ghost Festival using Aaron to take the island’s magic, and cement their rightful place as the true—albeit dead—rulers of the island. With only seven days before the barrier weakens, Caroline is in a race against time to save her brother. But as enemies stack up, always one step ahead, Caroline can’t help but wonder if she’s strong enough for this battle. Or is she doomed to repeat the mistakes that sent her away all those years ago?
PRODIGAL TIGER is a rich, cinematic celebration of Malaysian magic and folklore, as well as an emotional exploration of never quite feeling like your whole self after living in the diaspora.
ONE
The moon was full the night I almost died.
Leaves slapped at my skin as I dashed through rows of banana trees, crashing inelegantly through the grove. J.J.’s voice cracked behind me. “Caro, she’s coming!”
“I know!” I tried to pry magic from the air, scrambling to remember the protection spells I’d learned. The island’s magic pulsed in my hands, ready to serve, and my fingers twined around its silken threads to weave it together with my own magic. Shield spell, shield spell, shield spell, c’mon—
For one fragile moment, the spell held: golden thread gleaming in the dark.
Then the island’s magic slipped from mine, and the shield dissolved. I cursed, abandoning this idea, and picked up speed. No island magic to rely on, then—just my own paltry strength and wits.
A tree root reared to trip me and send me sprawling. J.J.’s hand closed around my arm, pulling me up. His glasses glinted in the dim light. “I’ll distract her. Go, run, get help—”
A high-pitched, deadly cackle reverberated through the trees. “Silly children,” a woman’s distorted voice chanted, singsong in an ominous rhythm. “Silly, silly children. Coming alone. No one to see them die.”
J.J. stumbled backward, pressing himself against a tree to hide as I tried again to conjure a spell. Panic burned my throat as the spell flickered, dying between my fingertips. My teacher’s voice echoed in my head, stern and resolute: Calm yourself. If you don’t control your own magic, you’ll never be able to properly use the island’s.
Before I could focus properly, a sharp whistle cut through the air. Something slammed J.J.’s head backward into the tree, and he crumpled soundlessly at its base. Jagged fingernails, sharply carved and deadly, closed around my arm and hurled me across the gravel-covered ground. I went tumbling, rocks biting into my skin as the half-formed spell shattered into pieces again.
The world went dark for a few moments as I slowly pushed myself to my feet. Details took shape slowly, revealing the nightmare of a creature looming over an unconscious J.J. Dim moonlight made the sliver of bone sticking out of J.J.’s arm gleam white, and cast shadows under his contorted, twisted leg. I watched, horrified, as the monster withdrew her hand, J.J.’s blood dripping off her fingers. Long lines of red streamed down his face, staining the collar of his shirt.
“Stop,” I begged, and the pontianak turned to assess me. Rows of discolored teeth glowed gray when the vampiric spirit bared her teeth. “Please don’t hurt him!”
I’d barely blinked before the pontianak grabbed me, her nails closing around my throat as I looked into the twin dying stars of her eyes. “You foolish child,” she rasped, choking me with the scent of rotten sulfur. “You thought you could kill me? Monsters aren’t so easily killed.”
I watched, terrified, as her bloodless lips ripped at the corners of her mouth, jaw unhinging wide to reveal dangling bones and flesh. My mouth went dry, unable to make a single sound. Only one thought pounded in my head as she curled a hand around my wrist: This is how I die this is how I die this is how I—
Someone shook my arm. I jerked awake, my limbs flailing and almost smacking the flight attendant in the face. “Sayang,” she said, tone gentle, “is everything all right? You’re screaming.”
I stared at her, unable to reconcile the airplane’s bright lights with the darkness of the banana grove. The nightmare—memory, my mind reminded me—still clung to me like cobwebs, making my heart race. “What?” I croaked.
“You’re screaming,” the flight attendant repeated. She pinched her fingers and slowly peeled twin silencing and illusion spells away from the ceiling. Most of the non-magical, mortal passengers looked unaffected, and only a few busybody wizards were peering at me, so the attendants must have worked fast.
The attendant adjusted her position, rocking back on her heels. “Is everything okay?”
I pulled myself up, trying not to wince at the stinging ache in my back. “Bad dream,” I mumbled. “Can I, um, get some water?”
“Sure.” The attendant got up, patting my headrest. “We’re landing soon, though, so please put your seat upright.”
My seat companion, a little old lady, looked up from her book. “Hello, dear,” she said, her eyes crinkling at the sides. “You slept the whole way north from Singapore. Long journey?” She pointed at the small new york! <3 sticker on my phone, the one my roommate, Lydia, had gifted me as a joke. “Did you fly all the way from New York City?”
I nodded, hoping that would be the end of it.
It wasn’t. “Are you on vacation? First time here?”
“I’m from Penang,” I said shortly, pressing my palms to my eyes. “Visiting home.”
“Oh,” she chirped. “What brings you back?”
My brother is missing. “Family,” I said instead. Then, as a polite afterthought, I added, “I haven’t seen them since I moved abroad five years ago.”
“How brave of you to leave so young,” the woman said, beaming.
I forced a smile. Brave, yes. Certainly nothing to do with my exile. Explaining that would mean explaining the Incident, and I really didn’t feel like revisiting my nightmare.
The flight attendant appeared back by my side. “Compliments of the airline,” she said with a practiced smile, handing the woman a brochure: the non-magical version, judging by the color scheme. She handed me a different brochure and a glass of water. “And for you, ma’am.”
I flipped it open, even though I already knew what it would say. They hadn’t changed the tourism brochure in years, though it looked like someone had updated the fonts, at least. At the top, as always, it gleefully screamed: MAGICAL WIZARDS WELCOME! A glossy aerial photo of the island took up the top third of the page, followed by a cheerful paragraph: Want to make sure your personal battery of magic never runs dry? Boost it with the island’s repository today, whether you’re in the east or west! With one simple permit, you can rest easy with an unlimited supply of magic at your fingertips. All visitors welcome!
Right below was a yellow box, blinking brightly: Apply for a Magical Pass Today! A little dragon bounded around the page, jaws snapping on paper. I glared at it. Do I have to apply if I know the answer is no?
I followed the dragon to the other side of the brochure, where it danced and slithered around blocky letters that theatrically announced AUGUST: HUNGRY GHOST FESTIVAL at the top of the page. I sighed, tapping the words with my finger. Who told the High Magical Council about clip art?
Well. At least they were trying new things. That was not something you could usually say of the Council.
Skimming the brochure offered the barest level of information about the festival possible. I snuck a glance at the woman’s next to me; it didn’t have the fancy dragon, but it did say functionally the same thing. In the seventh lunar month, the barriers between the spirit and mortal realms are believed to grow thinner, allowing ghosts to emerge from the underworld to visit their descendants . . . Look out for lively performances meant to please the ghosts, lest they wreak havoc . . . The peak of the festival is known as the Hungry Ghost Festival. This is believed to be when the gates of the underworld open.
Mine had a live countdown: Seven more days until the Hungry Ghost Festival! And then an extra line, underlined in red ink: PLEASE ALERT AUTHORITIES IF YOU SEE MALEVOLENT GHOST ACTIVITY. I rolled my eyes at this—how like the Council to stir up fear about something that wasn’t actually a threat, just so they could crow at the end about how safe they were keeping the island.
I shut the brochure with an irritated flick, turning to look out the window past my seatmate. Thick, fluffy clouds cast long shadows over the little blue-bottomed fishing boats dotting the green-gray expanse of the sea. The sun caught the waves, causing the surface to glimmer.
If I closed my eyes, I could imagine Aaron hovering next to me, crowding against the window to marvel at the way the water gleamed under the sun. As children, we’d always flipped a coin before getting onboard a plane: heads, he would get the window seat; tails, and it was mine.
I stared deep into the waters. Where is he?
Overhead, the loudspeaker crackled to life. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are making our final descent into Penang International Airport. Welcome to Malaysia. For our first-time visitors, selamat datang, welcome, and to those returning home, selamat pulang, welcome back. Thank you for flying with Malaysia Airlines. We hope you had a pleasant flight. May your time here be enjoyable.”
As I emerged from the airport, the goose bumps the air-conditioner left on my skin evaporated in Penang’s warm, sticky humidity. I swept my messy strands up into a ponytail, keeping them out of my face and off my immediately sweaty neck. “Welcome home, Caroline Chua,” I muttered.
I’d been gone for five years, but everything seemed the same at first glance. Bored traffic cops, overdressed in dark blue button-ups and long, neatly pressed pants, waved cars aside with barely a glance. Palm trees still loomed outside the airport, framed by lush hills dotted with mushrooms of red-roofed bungalows. The island’s magic swirled around me, feeling as it did when I was a child: a rushing eddy of energy waiting to be controlled. My own personal magic—sharper, faster, and stronger after years of cultivating it in New York—stirred. I could see it take shape in my mind as its usual form of a tiger, bristling with strength as it sniffed curiously at the magic in the air.
Almost absently, I reached out to touch the island’s magic, but it bristled under my hand, feeling prickly and rough. I scowled, withdrawing my hand. That was something else that had stayed the same.
But while so much remained unchanged, I couldn’t help but notice there were just as many unfamiliar sights. Cars snaked in and out of a new colossal parking garage down the road. At some point, someone had taken out the local mamak stall and replaced it with a McDonald’s. And the biggest, most jarring change: a giant statue of my great-great-great-grandfather now stood in the center of the concourse. Mortals swarmed around it, unable to see the magic that hid it from their view, but I watched several wizards pause to admire it.
The monument depicted an imposing man standing on a ship, his carved granite face solemn and stoic as he peered out toward the ocean. In his right hand was a hammer, symbolizing how he’d built our magical side of the island from scratch; his left hand rested on the ship’s helm, long fingers curved around the ridges of the wheel. Every wizarding child on this island knew his name: Chua Yun Fan, the politician and warrior who’d single-handedly defended the island against bloodthirsty pirates and built the systems that led us to prosperity out of the ashes.
My family had traded on the Chua name, both literally and metaphorically. Generations ago, the earliest of us had sailed from the south of China to join the new streams of wizards and mortal traders thronging British Malaya. They’d brought their Hokkien traditions with them, pioneering new ways to safely cross the ocean. When my great-great-great-grandfather had been born, astrologers had told his father that he was truly a son of the wild seas—that he would turn the tides of our family’s fortune, bringing great glory and riches to his name.
Decades later, he’d done just that. I could hear my friend Zati exaggeratedly reading it to me from our history textbook: The siege of Penang was broken when Naval Commander Chua Yun Fan led a successful battalion to destroy Ooi Kai Tsiang and his pirate ships during the Straits Emergency, restoring prosperity to the ports and allowing trade to flourish in the region again.
And that’s why Caroline gets to boss us around, J.J. had said solemnly. One day she might be the High Protector, and then we’ll get to tell everyone about how she stole our fries during lunch— He’d broken off, chortling as I shoved him.
I hefted my bag onto my shoulder, skin prickling with discomfort and sticky humidity as I turned away. Where Chua Yun Fan had stayed and built his entire life into this island, I had fled. He’d built our family name from the ground up, and in one night, I’d almost torn it to pieces. It was almost funny how fragile legacy could be.
Anyway, I was here to find out what I could about Aaron’s disappearance. Everything else was secondary. Once I found him, I could vanish. Nobody would miss me. It had been five years since I’d left; everyone had probably moved on by now.
A streak of silver caught my eye, and I turned to see two tall twin girls, almost identical save for their hair color, walking toward me. I swallowed hard, surprised to see them. I hadn’t expected to run into old friends so soon—I’d thought I’d have at least an afternoon before my arrival was made public. I wasn’t ready; I wasn’t prepared.
One twin lifted her hand in greeting. “Caroline!”
Dammit. It was too late to make a run for it.
I managed a weak grin as they approached me. “Hi, Bella,” I said weakly. “Hi, Tina. What are you both doing here?”
“Picking you up,” Arabella Lim replied. Her mouth curved in a cool, polite smile. “Obviously.”
They were taller and tanner than I remembered. Athena and Arabella Lim were both nineteen, like Aaron. The Lims were the other prestigious family on the island, having continually served on the Council for generations since Chua Yun Fan’s time. The twins, Aaron, and I had all grown up together, and even though the three of them had ganged up on me for being younger, they’d always made sure to include me—and later, my best friends, J.J. and Zati.
I’d always admired them: cool-headed, clever Arabella and electric, bold Athena. Where Athena went, Arabella always followed, like the sun and moon. I’d always thought they’d had a soft spot for me. But the way they were looking at me now—arms folded, shoulders straight, wearing expressions that were carefully neutral (Arabella) and outwardly critical (Athena)—didn’t bode well.
Athena broke the stalemate. She flicked her silver hair over her shoulder, and the smell of sharp lemongrass mixed with the chemical, summery scent of sunblock hit my nose. “Look who’s finally returned,” she said, a chunky jade-and-silver-studded bangle falling around her wrist.
Arabella threw an arm around me in a one-armed hug, pushing up her round glasses with her other hand. “It’s been a while, Caro. Welcome home.”
Athena smiled, though on her it looked vaguely like a predator baring its teeth. “Any reason why you haven’t even bothered contacting us in the last five years?”
I stiffened, the accusation of my neglect stinging a little. Par for the course, really—Athena had never particularly cared about niceties. But I decided to be polite anyway. “I was busy.”
Arabella, ever the diplomat, changed the subject as she adjusted her arm across my shoulders for a more secure grip. “How’s school?”
“Fine.”
Athena turned on her heel, and out of habit, like we always did, Arabella and I fell into step behind her, heading down the concourse. “Should have updated Instagram every once in a while,” she tossed over her shoulder. “I’ve always wanted to see New York.”
“The Academy doesn’t allow Instagram,” I muttered, still irritated. I swallowed down the added snark of And I wasn’t on vacation, remember? Instead, I said, “I don’t like social media, anyway.”
Athena arched an eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re a normal eighteen-year-old?”
“Leave her alone, Tina,” Arabella intervened, finally letting go of me. She tapped my bag. “Let me help you with this.”
“It’s fine, I can handle it,” I said, hiking it even higher onto my shoulder to prove a point. “What do you know about Aaron?”
The twins exchanged a glance before Arabella said, “You should talk to your parents about that.”
I opened my mouth to ask more questions, but Athena meaningfully cleared her throat as we arrived at the glowing transport room, where magical gates waited to take magical travelers all over the island. Her implication was clear: Not here.
The gatekeeper, a bulky giant of a man, didn’t even look up at us as we entered. As the gates flashed and glowed with all the different wizards coming and going, he said in a bored voice, reading off the script in front of him, “Hello, and welcome to Penang—”
“Not to cut in here,” Arabella intervened politely, “but we’re in a little bit of a hurry.” She flashed him a smile and held out her palm, a flicker of silver magic dancing between her fingertips before settling into the shape of a palm tree. “Council business.”
He grunted and waved us through, allowing us to skip the queue for registration and get in line for the gates instead. I glanced at the twins. “You’re on the Council?”
“Uncle Leonard petitioned to expand the Council to include us once we came of age,” Arabella explained. She smiled. “We’re the youngest there, so it’s kind of nice. We’re making history.”
I tried not to scowl at the memory of the twins’ uncle. I had better things to do than waste my time hating on Leonard Tan or thinking about how irritating it could be to work with a Council who dug their heels in at every turn. Rather than picking at this particular grudge, I went for a safer option. “And how’s your mom?”
“Ah, she’s having a great time.” Arabella stepped up to the gate, which yawned open. White light spilled out from inside. “She’s actually in London right now visiting family.”
She flicked her wrist, and her magic took on the form of spellthreads that wove themselves into the island’s swirling magic, ready to take us from one strategically placed gate to another on the island. It would only take a few seconds, but my hair still stood on end. My magic paced, a fretful tiger rumbling anxiously. Aaron had always laughed at how nervous I got taking these gates; they always made me feel like my skin was being turned inside out.
At least the ride was quick. The gate safely spat us out, sending us stumbling into a hidden park tucked discreetly between two mortal houses. I dusted myself off before I turned on the twins. “What do you know?” I demanded again. “It’s just us now. What’s going on?”
“Always the questions.” Athena spun around, irritation clear in every line of her body. “Well, we don’t have any answers. Come on. In ten seconds, you can ask your parents everything you want to know.”
