Book Title: THE FORMIDABLE MISS CASSIDY
Character Name: Miss Leda Cassidy and Mr. Kay Wing Tong
How would you describe your family or your childhood?
Mr. Kay: Ah, I am delighted you asked! I am a widower now, having attained a venerable middle age, but when I was younger, the family matchmaker sent me a bride. Now this might be unsurprising for most – of course the sons of a family must be married – but you see, I was born with some, ah, ominous signs in my fortune. Originally, they did not know if I could marry at all, so I was sent to work as an apprentice in my uncle’s shipping business. But once I became a successful shipping merchant – I run Kay Shipping in Singapore, part of the Straits Steamship Company – naturally some things were smoothed over. My wife was very satisfactory, and gave me two healthy sons and twin daughters, Yeling and Yezi. I was sad when my wife died, but I delight in our daughters. People say I spoil them, that it is not necessary for two girls to have so much education on, and to even have a live-in governess from Scotland to teach them English. But it is the 1890s!
Girls will grow up to have better opportunities in future, I am sure, and it will be useful for them to speak and write English fluently, do you not agree?
Miss Cassidy: My family? Ah… there are many of us, scattered all over the world, across… across many… times and cultures. Ah, it is best I say no more. Sometimes they can hear us.
What was your greatest talent?
Mr. Kay: I am very persuasive. Some even say I am charming. But I prefer to say, I am very persistent, and I never argue. I merely convince others that my point of view is the best one, and they knew it all along.
Miss Cassidy: I hide things well.
Significant other?
Mr. Kay: I am a respectable widower. I am also wealthy and influential, and Singapore society has grown to be forgiving of my quirks, if they also wish to benefit from my business acumen. Therefore, if I enjoy the company of my daughters’ British governess, I see no reason for anyone to mind.
Miss Cassidy: I am a respectable middle-aged spinster with no remarkable traits whatsoever, so I really do not… excuse me. Mr. Kay is giving me such a look…
Biggest challenge in relationships?
Mr. Kay: All challenges may be overcome with enough persistence.
Miss Cassidy: I haven’t got any romantic relationships, and I will not be indulging in any in the future. Please tell Mr. Kay to stop smiling at me that way.
Where do you live?
Mr. Kay: Singapore, in our family estate, Pandan Villa.
Miss Cassidy: I am a working governess and chaperone, so I live with my employer.
Do you have any enemies?
Mr. Kay: Only my… unfortunate family inheritance.
Miss Cassidy: Well… some of my family does not… get along with me.
How do you feel about the place where you are now? Is there something you are particularly a ached to, or particularly repelled by, in this place?
Mr. Kay: Pandan Villa is a wonderful family home. My two sons are married, and each have a wing in the house; my oldest daughter-in-law runs the household and has given me two healthy grandchildren. My twin daughters are sixteen, and some say they are ready for marriage, but I would rather keep them with me always. However, I don’t think that would be permitted, and this causes me some distress. I take great comfort in my companionable chats with-
Miss Cassidy: Ahem! Before I took up employment in the Kay residence, I worked for the Bendemeers in Bendemeer House. It is a sad story – almost all the children of the family died of a sudden illness. At night, I would go to the garden, and amid the banana and frangipani trees, I saw something moving…
What keeps you awake at night?
Mr. Kay: My family has a secret – a hereditary curse. I am used to it by now, although it can be rather horrible. But I have come to realize that my dear twin daughters are also carrying the curse…
Miss Cassidy: I think… something is not quite right in Pandan Villa. I am going to find out what it is, but I don’t know if my… particular skills… will be enough to handle it.
Is there something that you need or want that you don’t have? For yourself or for someone important to you?
Mr. Kay: I am worried about my daughters. I trust Miss Cassidy to look a er them… but now I am afraid for Miss Cassidy as well.
Miss Cassidy: That is nonsense, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. But I have written a letter to my… family. I hope I will hear from them in me…
THE FORMIDABLE MISS CASSIDY by Meihan Boey
A Novel
A Scottish governess arrives in Singapore to take up her new post, only to find a host of problems await that require her very unique skills in this award-winning and incredibly entertaining historical fantasy novel.
There has never yet been a crisis that Miss Leda Cassidy hasn’t been able to fix, be it a lovelorn young charge, perpetually distracted students, or an unruly and malevolent ghost. When she arrives at her new employer’s home and discovers the family is being terrorized by a vampiric spirit, she sets about righting the situation without delay.
But it seems that as soon as she puts one supernatural creature to rest, another appears to take its place. A woman’s work is truly never done, is it?
When she meets Mr. Kay, a widower whose greatest worry appears to be making matches for his twin daughters, she is happy to take a post that might provide her a bit of respite from her more “spirited” friends. But she soon realizes that the Kays are in far more trouble than she realized—and that her presence in their home might have put the family she’s grown to cherish in even more jeopardy. Will she be able to save them all before it’s too late, or has she finally stumbled upon the one problem she isn’t able to solve?
Fantasy Historical [HarperCollins, On Sale: September 16, 2025, Trade Paperback / e-Book, ISBN: 9780063447417 / eISBN: 9780063447400]
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About Meihan Boey
Meihan Boey is the author of the novels The Formidable Miss Cassidy, which was the co-winner of the 2021 Epigram Books Fiction Prize and winner of the 2022 Singapore Book Award for Best Literary Work; and The Enigmatic Madam Ingram, a finalist for the 2023 Epigram Books Fiction Prize; as well as the science fiction novella The Messiah Virus. She is also the vice president of the Association of Comic Artists of Singapore and has scripted several comics, including Supacross and The Once and Marvellous DKD. She is a dedicated comic book and manga fan, an enthusiastic gamer, a persistent triathlete, and not yet a Super Saiyan, though she keeps trying.
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