The Empress of Salt and Fortune | Book Review
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo
Tor.Com – March 24, 2020
*An advanced reader ebook copy was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*
Welp. It’s week two of working from home for me. One of the silver linings of being stuck at home is more time for reading. Here I thought my book hoarding habits were bad. Turns out I was stocking up for quarantine…
Despite my gallows humor, I’m honestly thrilled to share a fabulous new novella from Tor.com! Novellas are a new addition to my reading live and I think these compact stories are awesome. Tor.com, specifically, has been leading the pack with their awarding-winning and dedicated fans. I recently blew through Seanan McGuire’s Wayward Children series. So, I have been on the lookout for new releases in 2020, which leads us to Nghi Vo’s The Empress of Salt and Fortune
About the Book
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.
My Thoughts
Gahhh. I’ve been struggling to put my thoughts into words for this one! I tried jotting down some notes…
Meandring. Nonlinear, yet linear. A tale within a tale. Intriguing. Mesmerizing. Heartbreaking. Heartfilling. Lush and immersive.
Okay, if that stream of consciousness didn’t strike your fancy let me continue. The story unfolds as we follow a cleric raised to record stories who visits home of the former empress during her time in exile. As the cleric records the mundane of the household, they encounter Rabbit. Rabbit is the former servant and confidant of the Empress. Rabbit tells the tale of the Empress in exile in small bursts. It is both a story about the famous Empress In-yo and Rabbit’s story of a no name woman who befriended a lonely foreign wife.
The story centers around rebellion and political intrigue as the Empress claws her way out of exile into the throneroom. And the overwhelming feeling I was left with was the power of women’s rage to change their circumstances and world, on one hand. While on the other hand there is a since of love between between women and the epicness of true love between everyday people.
I’m not sure I did this novella justice. Just read it. Trust me.
About the Author
Nghi Vo lives on the shores of Lake Michigan, and her fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Expanded Horizons, Crossed Genres, and Icarus Magazine. She likes stories about things that fall through the cracks and live on the edges, and she has a deep love for tales of revolution (personal and political), transfiguration, and transmutation. She’s a writer by trade, a storyteller by nature, a volunteer by inclination, and a dreamer by design.
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