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yourbookishbff's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This was a reread for me, and, again, a five-star reading experience. Sherry Thomas excels in using dual timeline/time slips to slowly reveal character backstory and heighten the suspense, and this dual timeline is particularly devastating. This story of two unlikely people brought together by circumstance is explicitly a fated romance, and with its lightly fantastical wuxia elements and chi-based magic, the world feels soft around the edges in a way that fits such a sweeping story of star-crossed spies and unearthly villains. This hits so many of my favorite beats - second-chance romance, hidden identity, on-page declarations of fidelity, and the list goes on (and on). I highly recommend reading both installments in this duology, and honestly they can be read in any order (The Hidden Blade is a prequel to this story and shows our two characters as they grow up and their paths begin to merge). Please note content warnings on this one - I have included additional detail for one potentially triggering scene.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Murder, Gun violence, Child death, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Pregnancy, Colonisation, and Sexual content
Minor: Infidelity
Child death: there is on-page infant death. It is alluded to from the very start of the book, so it is less a reveal and more a flashback of events. The baby's death is at the hands of our supernaturally powerful villain, and is not realistic or likely (as a parent, this made it far less triggering for me than death-while-sleeping, death due to an accident, death due to illness, etc.). It is tragic, but I personally feel that it is not gratuitously so. For some readers, though, this is understandably a topic they will avoid entirely, and I want to note it here for that reason!yourbookishbff's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Abandonment, Child death, Murder, and Grief
Moderate: Pregnancy
heydebigale's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
I loved this duology SO much. I’d definitely recommend reading The Hidden Blade first.
This is an friends-to-enemies-to-lovers second chance romance with elements of magical realism due to the martial arts written in the style of the wuxia genre.
This book is fairly violent so definitely check content warnings.
I love nearly everything Sherry Thomas writes, but this is my favorite yet.
Notes: takes place in north-western, China and London, England. Catherine/Ying-Ying is Chinese and Leighton is English.
This is an friends-to-enemies-to-lovers second chance romance with elements of magical realism due to the martial arts written in the style of the wuxia genre.
This book is fairly violent so definitely check content warnings.
I love nearly everything Sherry Thomas writes, but this is my favorite yet.
Notes: takes place in north-western, China and London, England. Catherine/Ying-Ying is Chinese and Leighton is English.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, Gore, Child death, and Violence
megatza's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Angst-filled, wuxia inspired, Victorian Era romance. Largely closed door, but achingly romantic.
It's *not* for everyone, and it will likely make you cry. But so beautiful.
It's *not* for everyone, and it will likely make you cry. But so beautiful.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
bookfortbuilder's review
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Pregnancy, Child death, Sexism, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Colonisation and Murder
Minor: Racism
paperbackstacks's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Content Warnings
Minor: Child death
jlovesromance's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death
megloveswords12's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child death and Violence
militantlyromantic's review
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Before I start this review, MAJOR CW: infanticide.
I've been trying to figure out how to describe this book and, ironically, words are coming up short. It's sweeping and hella emotional and with few nitpicks, a really rock solid piece.
The female protag, Catherine or Ying-Ying, depending on what country she's in, is the daughter of a Chinese concubine and a Scottish man who died shortly after her birth. Her mother became the wife of a governor and died when Ying-Ying was around ten. One of the things I love is that neither the mother, nor any other women who engage in or live by any type of sex work are considered lesser anywhere in the text. They are actually commonly used as spies and other agents because of their recognized value. Her mother is remembered for numerous artistic abilities and other valued skills.
Ying-Ying is raised by a governess figure (a master thief, it's not actually clear how she ends up in this role) as a martial artist, and tutored by an Englishman in English and other Western information. When she resists being raped by her oldest step-brother, it sets off a series of events in which the English tutor is killed by a second step-brother. This, along with some other plot elements, ends in her disguising herself as a young man and acting as an information courier for her step-father (who is not a total shit, unlike his two sons).
It is while she is out acting in this capacity that she meets "The Persian." Aka, our male protag, Captain Leighton Atwood, who is not Persian even just a tiny bit, but is passing as while mapping Chinese Turkestan for the British Raj as a counteroffensive against Russia's apparent intent to come through the Asiatic continent.
One of the things I love about this relationship is that Atwood is pretty hard up for Ying-Ying the moment he meets her. (And he sees through the disguise almost immediately, but never calls her on it.) But he doesn't even attempt to get in her pants. Rather, he takes care of her. He finds food for her, and tucks her in, and does all these tiny things that nobody has ever bothered to do for her and she is absolutely slain by his kindness.
Unfortunately, after they eventually become lovers, a miscommunication leads to him leaving her, thinking her an agent for the Chinese government and preying on him. As he leaves her, she's mad enough that she gives him a "salve" that is actually poison and spends the next eight years thinking she has killed him and feeling deeply shitty about that. Because, on top of the fact that her anger wears off pretty quickly, turns out she's pregnant.
Tragically, two months after giving birth to the baby girl, the step-brother who has sworn vengeance on her due to Reasons, finds her and kills the child.
All of this plays out in flashbacks that take place in between the current action, eight years later, wherein Ying-Ying has gone to England to look for jade tablets her step-father needs. Because this is a romance, and this is how romance works, she almost immediately meets Atwood, who has just become betrothed to another woman.
One of my very few problems with this book is that the woman, Annabel Chase, ends up being a villain, giving away Ying-Ying's location to her enemy, whom Annabel well knows will kill Ying-Ying. This honestly felt unnecessary, particularly since there was another character that just as easily could have done so and would have made as much sense. It felt like an outdated trope for trope's sake.
Which is odd, because so much of this book does not fall into that. Even though there are dual POVs, this is really Ying-Ying's story. The HEA requires resolution of her family issues as much as it does Atwood giving up England (for the most part) to marry her in China, take on her life. Even when things are at their worst between them, Atwood isn't cruel or hateful to Ying-Ying, and for the most part, neither is she to him.
Overall, though, this is moving and both main characters are people you not only want to spend time with, but wish to know more about. There's a lot about this book that is different than other histroms set at the time without upsetting the norms of the genre. I enjoyed it muchly.
I've been trying to figure out how to describe this book and, ironically, words are coming up short. It's sweeping and hella emotional and with few nitpicks, a really rock solid piece.
The female protag, Catherine or Ying-Ying, depending on what country she's in, is the daughter of a Chinese concubine and a Scottish man who died shortly after her birth. Her mother became the wife of a governor and died when Ying-Ying was around ten. One of the things I love is that neither the mother, nor any other women who engage in or live by any type of sex work are considered lesser anywhere in the text. They are actually commonly used as spies and other agents because of their recognized value. Her mother is remembered for numerous artistic abilities and other valued skills.
Ying-Ying is raised by a governess figure (a master thief, it's not actually clear how she ends up in this role) as a martial artist, and tutored by an Englishman in English and other Western information. When she resists being raped by her oldest step-brother, it sets off a series of events in which the English tutor is killed by a second step-brother. This, along with some other plot elements, ends in her disguising herself as a young man and acting as an information courier for her step-father (who is not a total shit, unlike his two sons).
It is while she is out acting in this capacity that she meets "The Persian." Aka, our male protag, Captain Leighton Atwood, who is not Persian even just a tiny bit, but is passing as while mapping Chinese Turkestan for the British Raj as a counteroffensive against Russia's apparent intent to come through the Asiatic continent.
One of the things I love about this relationship is that Atwood is pretty hard up for Ying-Ying the moment he meets her. (And he sees through the disguise almost immediately, but never calls her on it.) But he doesn't even attempt to get in her pants. Rather, he takes care of her. He finds food for her, and tucks her in, and does all these tiny things that nobody has ever bothered to do for her and she is absolutely slain by his kindness.
Unfortunately, after they eventually become lovers, a miscommunication leads to him leaving her, thinking her an agent for the Chinese government and preying on him. As he leaves her, she's mad enough that she gives him a "salve" that is actually poison and spends the next eight years thinking she has killed him and feeling deeply shitty about that. Because, on top of the fact that her anger wears off pretty quickly, turns out she's pregnant.
Tragically, two months after giving birth to the baby girl, the step-brother who has sworn vengeance on her due to Reasons, finds her and kills the child.
All of this plays out in flashbacks that take place in between the current action, eight years later, wherein Ying-Ying has gone to England to look for jade tablets her step-father needs. Because this is a romance, and this is how romance works, she almost immediately meets Atwood, who has just become betrothed to another woman.
One of my very few problems with this book is that the woman, Annabel Chase, ends up being a villain, giving away Ying-Ying's location to her enemy, whom Annabel well knows will kill Ying-Ying. This honestly felt unnecessary, particularly since there was another character that just as easily could have done so and would have made as much sense. It felt like an outdated trope for trope's sake.
Which is odd, because so much of this book does not fall into that. Even though there are dual POVs, this is really Ying-Ying's story. The HEA requires resolution of her family issues as much as it does Atwood giving up England (for the most part) to marry her in China, take on her life. Even when things are at their worst between them, Atwood isn't cruel or hateful to Ying-Ying, and for the most part, neither is she to him.
Overall, though, this is moving and both main characters are people you not only want to spend time with, but wish to know more about. There's a lot about this book that is different than other histroms set at the time without upsetting the norms of the genre. I enjoyed it muchly.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder and Child death
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