Chloe Gong never fails to take her readers on a journey. Foul Lady Fortune opens a fresh series for her, but also serves as a continuation of the adventures of the Shakesperian characters in her These Violent Delights duology. This novel provides Rosalind’s story. I liked it only slightly less than the two TVD books,…
Jeannie Lin’s Lotus Palace Mysteries are back, and they continue to be satisfying, well-crafted reads. They’re best read in order, so I suggest not starting with this one; however, this review doesn’t have spoilers except for identifying previous couples. Song Yi is the lead courtesan at the House of Heavenly Peaches. She’s known as a…
Début novels can be a bit of a gamble, but I’m glad to report that Lily Chu’s The Stand-In is a risk worth taking. Gracie Reed is the biracial daughter of a white Canadian man and a Chinese mother now struggling with dementia. First, her boss sexually harasses and then fires her. Next, a paparazzo…
I have been blown away. Chloe Gong set a high bar with These Violent Delights, a 1920s fantasy version of Romeo and Juliet which transports the story’s action to Shanghai. Our Violent Ends is the first book’s equal. Gong’s talent remains unstinting. You need to read this book. It’s now 1927, and Juliette Cai is…
The Devil Comes Courting is the third full-length novel book in the Worth Saga, and it follows a new heroine as well as the continuing adventures of the Worth siblings and the Hunter family. Captain Grayson Hunter is looking for a genius, specifically, someone to code Chinese characters for his telegraph line. His longtime dream…
Stunning prose, a pulse-pounding romance, and unexpected twists upon Shakespeare’s familiar tale of youthful but doomed love make These Violent Delights a high-quality read for anyone who likes a good gangster tale with a heavy skosh of romance thrown in. It’s Shanghai in 1926, and a war between two families – alike in dignity, but…
Jeannie Lin’s Lotus Palace Mysteries hit a trifecta of unusual setting, richly drawn characters, and engaging plots. The Hidden Moon, book four in this series, continues this record, and I’m happy to be able to recommend it. Who would dare assassinate a chancellor on the very steps of the Chinese capital? Bai Wei-ling (Wei-wei to her…
A powerful story of love, sacrifice and survival set in China during the early years of World War II, Library of Legends is a gentle, magical surrealist fable about a land where enchantment may be waning but one can still catch a glimpse if one looks for it. Hu Lian is a second year scholarship…
Although Tales from the Gunpowder Chronicles features three separate steampunk novellas, I only read and reviewed the third novella, Love in the Time of Engines. The other two novellas are standalone stories; LitToE is a prequel to Gunpowder Alchemy, published in 2014. LitToE is tough to grade. Not because I didn’t enjoy it. I did. …
During the unstable Period of the Northern and Southern Dynasties in China (484 AD by the Western calendar), Hua Mulan’s much-awaited duel with her family’s rival is called off because both Mulan and her opponent, Yuan Kai, have been called up to a different fight. The emperor anticipates an invasion by the nomadic steppe people…
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