Configuration is fine:
Build configuration:

Unicode callbacks (you want at least one):
	Glib:			true
	ICU:			false
	UCDN:			false

Font callbacks (the more the better):
	FreeType:		true

Tools used for command-line utilities:
	Cairo:			true

Additional shapers (the more the better):
	Graphite2:		false

Test / platform shapers (not normally needed):
	CoreText:		false
	ICU Layout Engine:	false
	Old HarfBuzz:		false
	Uniscribe:		false

=====================================================
Fails at make stage, there is some linking issues. I looked at the make file, it was using LDFLAGS -L/usr/local/lib -lglib-2.0 and all there are the proper locations of my glib installations. But some some reason the make failed with the very long linking errors

I am not going to include the whole, just the first few lines would be enough.

Putting child 0x01cb4110 (test-unicode) PID 2710 on the chain.
Live child 0x01cb4110 (test-unicode) PID 2710 
Reaping winning child 0x01cb4110 PID 2710 
Live child 0x01cb4110 (test-unicode) PID 2711 
  CCLD   test-unicode
test_unicode-test-unicode.o: In function `test_unicode_subclassing_deep':
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:704: undefined reference to `hb_unicode_funcs_create'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:706: undefined reference to `hb_unicode_funcs_set_script_func'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:709: undefined reference to `hb_unicode_funcs_create'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:711: undefined reference to `hb_unicode_funcs_destroy'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:716: undefined reference to `hb_unicode_funcs_set_script_func'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:719: undefined reference to `hb_unicode_script'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:720: undefined reference to `hb_unicode_script'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:721: undefined reference to `hb_unicode_script'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:724: undefined reference to `hb_unicode_funcs_destroy'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:723: undefined reference to `g_assertion_message_expr'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:714: undefined reference to `g_assertion_message_expr'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:725: undefined reference to `g_assertion_message_expr'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:719: undefined reference to `g_assertion_message_cmpnum'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:721: undefined reference to `g_assertion_message_cmpnum'
/home/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api/test-unicode.c:720: undefined reference to `g_assertion_message_cmpnum'
test_unicode-test-unicode.o: In function `test_unicode_subclassing_default':

It looks that make died at this line:

Making all in api
make[3]: Entering directory `/d1/zhouke/download/harfbuzz-0.9.18/test/api'
rm -f test-unicode
echo "  CCLD  " test-unicode;/bin/sh ../../libtool --silent --tag=CC   --mode=link gcc  -g -O2  -Bsymbolic-functions -o test-unicode test_unicode-test-unicode.o  

Linking flags seems to be missing.