The Kebaya Stitcher of Jonker Street
A Novel of 1930s Malacca

About this book:

In the humid heart of 1930s Malacca, nineteen-year-old Mei Ling measures her worth in stitches. Within the cool airwells of her family's Jonker Street shophouse, she apprentices under her formidable grandmother, Mak Cho, mastering the exacting art of the *kebaya sulam*—the exquisitely embroidered blouse that speaks a Peranakan woman's lineage, status, and secret hopes before she utters a word. Every peony petal and swallow's wing she renders in Shanghai silk and gold thread is both a family commission and a quiet rehearsal for the wedding kebaya she may one day stitch for herself, if tradition allows her the choice.

Beyond the carved *pintu pagar* doors, the Straits Settlements are shifting: rubber prices tremble on London whispers, gramophones spill Shanghai jazz into coffee shops, and young men trade queue and *baju* for Western suits. Inside, the rhythms hold—tamarind and shrimp paste rising from the kitchen hearth, ancestor portraits watching from the *tng ngah*, Mak Cho's needle-sharp tongue policing tension and temperament alike. But when a forbidden motif appears in a bride's commission and a letter arrives from Singapore carrying news that could unravel the household's fragile prosperity, Mei Ling discovers that the most dangerous patterns are the ones stitched in silence.

Lush with the scents, textures, and cadences of a vanishing world, *The Kebaya Stitcher of Jonker Street* is a novel of heritage held in the hand—where a single thread can bind a family's honor, conceal a daughter's desire, or pull loose the secrets buried beneath generations of batik and gold. For readers who loved *The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane* and *The Island of Sea Women*, here is a story embroidered with the same meticulous care as Mei Ling's peonies: each chapter a stitch, each revelation a pattern finally, breathtakingly complete.