The Empress of Salt and Fortune, Nghi Vo

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language: English
country: USA
year: 2020
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy
series: The Singing Hills Cycle
dates read: 14.8.24-17.8.24

I really enjoyed Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune. it is a story within a story: a cleric from the Singing Hills abbey, Chih, has come to the former home-in-exile of the recently deceased Empress In-yo in search of previously hidden (hi)stories. there they meet Rabbit, a former handmaiden of the empress, who tells them stories as they catalogue the scattered pieces of In-yo’s life in exile.

the trajectory of In-yo’s life is a bit predictable (though there were a few surprises along the way), as is the final “twist”, but it’s nonetheless a very engaging, fast-paced book, told through an assortment of objects Chih finds around the house, and the stories-lessons Rabbit chooses to share in connection with them. In-yo came to the Empire of Anh from the conquered north and was sent into exile after bearing the emperor a son. from her country exile, using a network of fortune-tellers, jugglers, musicians, and others, she plotted to overthrow the empire which had taken her from her family, ravaged her homeland, and frozen the heartland of Anh itself out of time in an endless summer.

it does suffer from the usual flaws of a story about monarchs, but the fact that it’s narrated by the somewhat more cynical Rabbit, who began her service to In-yo as a cleaning girl at the palace, helps alleviate it a bit. I’m not convinced it’s as much a “feminist high fantasy” as the back cover blurb suggests — in fact it seemed to me relatively uninterested in its own gender politics, apart from a few oblique comments — but it’s enjoyable and thoughtful for what it is. I definitely think it’s worth a read, and I now want to read the sequels.

moods: mysterious, reflective, sad


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