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The Empress of Salt and Fortune (The Singing Hills Cycle, 1)

Nghi Vo

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Winner of the 2020 Crawford Award! Winner of the 2021 Hugo Award! A Hugo Award-Winning Series! A 2021 Locus Award Finalist A 2021 Ignyte Award Finalist A Goodreads Choice Award Finalist.

“Dangerous, subtle, unexpected and familiar, angry and ferocious and hopeful... The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a remarkable accomplishment of storytelling.” —NPR.

“Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today.” —Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen.

With the heart of an Atwood tale and the visuals of a classic Asian period drama, Nghi Vo's The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a tightly and lushly written narrative about empire, storytelling, and the anger of women. A young royal from the far north is sent south for a political marriage in an empire reminiscent of imperial China. Her brothers are dead, her armies and their war mammoths long defeated and caged behind their borders. Alone and sometimes reviled, she must choose her allies carefully.

Rabbit, a handmaiden, sold by her parents to the palace for the lack of five baskets of dye, befriends the emperor's lonely new wife and gets more than she bargained for.

At once feminist high fantasy and an indictment of monarchy, this evocative debut follows the rise of the empress In-yo, who has few resources and fewer friends. She's a northern daughter in a mage-made summer exile, but she will bend history to her will and bring down her enemies, piece by piece.

The Singing Hills Cycle: The Empress of Salt and Fortune, When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, Into the Riverlands, Mammoths at the Gates. The novellas of The Singing Hills Cycle are linked by the cleric Chih, but may be read in any order, with each story serving as an entrypoint.

Praise for The Empress of Salt and Fortune:

“An elegant gut-punch, a puzzle box that unwinds itself in its own way and in its own time. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Gorgeous. Cruel. Perfect. I didn't know I needed to read this until I did.” —Seanan McGuire.

“A tale of rebellion and fealty that feels both classic and fresh, The Empress of Salt and Fortune is elegantly told, strongly felt, and brimming with rich detail. An epic in miniature, beautifully realised.” —Zen Cho.

“Nghi Vo's gracefully told debut... resides in the intimate margins of its (beautifully imagined) world's history, portraying how the marginalized may yet shape those narratives and harness the power of stories.” —Indrapramit Das.

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Hi there Disco Dancers!\ \ I’ve collaborated with Becklovesbooks/Bookasaurusbex to provide books recs for her June Prideopoly challenge.\ \ I’ll be sharing these to social media later this week, but wanted to give you first look!\ \ I tried to go with books that matched both the prompt and the flag for each square, and chose indie books as much as possible. I have read and highly recommend all of these. \ \ Full list below images!\ \ \ \ List:\ \ Bi fantasy - The Final Strife by Saara el-Arifi\ \ Bi disability rep - Godkiller by Hannah Kaner \ \ Book in bi colours - Deceived by the Gargoyles by Lillian Lark (bi poly monster romance)\ \ Gay BIPOC MC/author - The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta \ \ Gay romance - Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee\ \ Identity not a prompt - In the Care of Magic by Robin Jo Margaret (aro allo, spicy) Initiation by Alethea Faust (intersex SC, spicy)\ \ Indigiqueer rep - Elatsoe by Darcie Little Badger (asexual Lipan Apache MC)\ \ Asexual rep - The Cybernetic Tea Shop by Meredith Katz \ \ Asexual friends to Lovers - Must Love Cake by Azalea Crowley (novelette)\ \ Non-binary (indie published) - A Heart to Hold by Sula Sullivan \ \ Non-binary sci fi - Hammajang Luck by Makama Yamamoto\ \ Non-binary under 250 pages - The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo\ \ Pansexual with creatures - Deal with the Devil by Bex Deveau (spicy poly monster romance)\ \ Pansexual rep - In the Ravenous Dark by A.M. Strickland \ \ Trans queer joy - Rainbow Islands by Devin Harnois \ \ Trans rights - Chef’s Kiss by T.J. Alexander\ \ Trans poetry - Blood Orange by Mx Yaffa\ \ Lesbian mental illness rep - A Little Luck by J.A. Collignon (anxiety)\ \ Lesbian graphic novel - On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden \ \ Lesbian slow burn - The Dos and Donuts of Love by Adiba Jaigirdar \ \ All the best,\ \ Disco

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Read and loved all of these! Books listed: Beating Heart Baby by Lio Min Cafe con Lychee by Emery Lee Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee Portrait for a Thief by Grace D. Li In the Watchful City by S. Qiouyi Lu The Black Tides of Heaven by Neon Yang The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo Silver Under Nighfall by Rin Chupeco Iron Widow by Xirin Jay Zhao Books for ESEA heritage month (UK), AAPI month (US) and Asian heritage month (CA). #booktok #aapiheritagemonth #asianbooks #mmromance #eseaheritagemonth

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Wanderland Reads\ \ Sayer\ \ • Mar 16

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Sapphic Speculative Fiction Expands the Imagination\ \ Many people approach queer romance through familiar frameworks. Modern settings. Recognizable social rules. Families that resemble the structures most of us grew up around. I wrote about this a week or two ago, about looking beyond contemporary romance for great sapphic stories.\ \ Those stories matter. They reflect lived experience and present-day struggles.\ \ Yet some of the most thought-provoking sapphic stories appear in places where the rules look completely different.\ \ Speculative fiction offers writers a simple but radical tool. The ability to ask what happens when the world operates under different assumptions?\ \ What happens when gender does not function the way our societies expect?\ \ What happens when colonial hierarchies collapse or never existed in the first place?\ \ What happens when family and community follow different structures?\ \ Sapphic speculative fiction thrives in these questions.\ \ What counts as speculative fiction?\ \ Speculative fiction serves as an umbrella term for stories that imagine worlds different from our own.\ \ Fantasy explores magic, mythology, and alternate societies.\ \ Science fiction looks at future technology, space exploration, and evolving social systems.\ \ Alternate history reimagines historical timelines.\ \ Dystopian and utopian fiction examine political systems taken to extreme outcomes.\ \ Magical realism blends ordinary life with elements that challenge reality.\ \ All of these genres share a common feature. They build worlds where the assumptions we treat as natural begin to shift.\ \ When those foundations move, storytelling changes.\ \ Reimagining gender systems\ \ Many speculative worlds question the rigid gender frameworks common in contemporary culture.\ \ Some settings include fluid understandings of gender. Others remove the strict gender hierarchy. Some societies organize identity through entirely different categories.\ \ When gender works differently, relationships evolve as well.\ \ Characters express attraction without the scripts that dominate many romance narratives. Partnerships develop around compatibility, trust, or shared goals rather than predetermined roles.\ \ For readers, this shift opens new ways of thinking about identity and connection.\ \ Challenging colonial power structures\ \ Speculative fiction often explores empire, conquest, and resistance.\ \ Many worlds center characters fighting against oppressive systems or rebuilding communities after political collapse. Some stories draw inspiration from Indigenous traditions or non-Western perspectives to imagine societies structured around different values.\ \ Within these settings, sapphic characters frequently appear as leaders, rebels, scholars, or explorers. Their relationships unfold inside larger struggles over power, survival, and cultural memory.\ \ Love does not exist in isolation. It grows alongside questions about justice, resistance, and the future of entire communities.\ \ Rethinking family and community\ \ Another striking feature of speculative fiction involves how stories approach family.\ \ The nuclear family model rarely stands as the only option. Characters often live within chosen families, cooperative communities, traveling crews, or political alliances.\ \ Romantic relationships exist inside these broader networks of care.\ \ Two people falling in love may also share responsibilities to their crew, their village, or their resistance movement. Partnership becomes part of a wider web of loyalty and support.\ \ For many readers, this structure feels both imaginative and deeply familiar.\ \ Common tropes in sapphic speculative fiction\ \ Speculative fiction combines romance with adventure and conflict. Certain narrative patterns recur.\ \ A princess guarded by a loyal warrior or knight who begins to question her duty.\ \ Rival soldiers from opposing factions are forced to work together.\ \ A scholar and a fighter navigating a dangerous quest.\ \ Political enemies are forming uneasy alliances during a rebellion.\ \ Explorers encounter unfamiliar worlds and build trust through survival.\ \ These tropes create tension, intimacy, and emotional growth while the larger story unfolds.\ \ Why these stories expand the imagination\ \ Speculative fiction does more than entertain. It shifts perspective.\ \ When readers step into worlds built on different assumptions, the systems shaping their own lives become visible. Gender roles, political hierarchies, and family structures reveal themselves as historical constructs rather than permanent truths.\ \ Sapphic speculative fiction takes this imaginative shift even further.\ \ Queer women appear not as side characters but as central figures in the story of the world itself. They lead revolutions. Build communities. Explore unknown territories. Fall in love while reshaping the societies around them.\ \ These stories ask readers to imagine something larger than representation.\ \ They ask us to imagine entirely different ways people live together.\ \ An invitation to explore\ \ If you have not spent time with sapphic speculative fiction, consider this an invitation.\ \ Explore fantasy worlds where magic reshapes power.\ \ Read science fiction that questions identity in future societies.\ \ Look for stories where love grows alongside resistance, exploration, and discovery.\ \ These books stretch the imagination in ways that linger long after the final page.\ \ I am especially interested in reading more sapphic speculative fiction this year.\ \ Which books expanded your worldview?\ \ Which stories stayed with you long after you finished them?\ \ Here is a list of books I've read and books on my TBR!\ \ \ \ Join for free or login

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