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

by

Nghi Vo

(Author)

4.4

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3,544 ratings


  • 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

  • A Book Riot Best Debut Fantasy of All Time

"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

A Book Riot Must Read Book of 2023 | A 2020 ALA Booklist Top Ten SF/F Debut | A Book Riot Must-Read Fantasy of 2020 | A Paste Most Anticipated Novel of 2020 | A Library Journal Debut of the Month | A Buzzfeed Must-Read Fantasy Novel of Spring 2020 | A Washington Post Best SFF of the Year So Far Pick

Named Book Riot's Best Book Cover of 2020

Named a Best of 2020 Pick for NPR | Library Journal | NYPL | Chicago Public Library | The Austen Chronicle | Autostraddle

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 Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle

  • The Empress of Salt and Fortune
  • When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain
  • Into the Riverlands
  • Mammoths at the Gates
  • The Brides of High Hill

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 entry point.

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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ISBN-10

125075030X

ISBN-13

978-1250750303

Print length

128 pages

Language

English

Publisher

Tordotcom

Publication date

March 23, 2020

Dimensions

5 x 0.55 x 7.95 inches

Item weight

3.36 ounces



Popular Highlights in this book

  • She had a foreigner’s beauty, like a language we do not know how to read.

    Highlighted by 1,072 Kindle readers

  • Accuracy above all things. You will never remember the great if you do not remember the small.

    Highlighted by 1,070 Kindle readers

  • Save that anger, Mai said with a sigh. Angry mothers raise daughters fierce enough to fight wolves.

    Highlighted by 836 Kindle readers


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ASIN :

B07VH6Y4JD

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2730 KB

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Editorial Reviews

"A stunning feminist fantasy...masterfully told." -- "Publishers Weekly (starred review)"

"Vo's debut has it all: from sapphic love to cruel betrayals; from political intrigue to lakes that glow red to ghosts that continue to walk old paths." -- "Booklist (starred review)"

"A remarkable accomplishment of storytelling." -- "NPR"

"[A] thoroughly entertaining blend of elegant fantasy, high royalty, and political intrigue is superbly brought to life by the talented narrative skills of Cindy Kay." -- "Midwest Book Review (audio review)"


Sample

Chapter One

“Something wants to eat you,” called Almost Brilliant from her perch in a nearby tree, “and I shall not be sorry if it does.”

Chiming bells. Chih rolled to their feet, glancing around the perimeter and squinting at the jangling string of bells that surrounded the small campsite. For a moment, they were back at the abbey in Singing Hills, late for another round of prayers, chores, and lessons, but Singing Hills did not smell of ghosts and damp pine boughs. Singing Hills did not make the hairs on Chih’s arms rise up in alarm or their heart lurch with panic.

The bells were still again.

“Whatever it is, it’s passed. It’s safe to come down.”

The hoopoe chirped something that managed to convey both suspicion and exasperation in a two-tone call, but she came down to settle on Chih’s head, shifting uneasily.

“The protections must still be up. We are very close to Lake Scarlet now.”

“We wouldn’t even have gotten this far if they were.” Chih considered for a moment, and then they stepped into their sandals and ducked under the belled string.

Almost Brilliant fluttered up in alarm before coming down to land on Chih’s shoulder this time.

“Cleric Chih, get back to your campsite! You are going to get killed, and then I will have to tell the Divine how terribly irresponsible you were.”

“Be sure to make a good account of it,” Chih said absently. “Hush now; I think I can see what made that racket.”

The hoopoe made a disgruntled rustling noise, but she dug her claws more firmly into Chih’s shoulder. Despite their bravado, the neixin’s feathery weight on their shoulder was a comfort, and Chih reached up to stroke her crest gently before walking between the pines.

They knew that there was no road there. They had crossed the white pine copse earlier that day, and though they could see the remnants of a road underneath the overgrown bracken and fallen boughs, it wouldn’t have let a dogcart through. Chih suspected that the road had once connected Lake Scarlet to the royal highway, in the days before the lake had been taken off every map and effectively disappeared by a highly dedicated and skilled imperial sorcerer.

There was no road there during the day, but obviously at night, things were different. The road ran as broad as a barge through the trees, and ranged on either side were faded ghosts, the former guardians of Lake Scarlet. Even a few months ago, Chih knew, the ghosts would have fallen on any living thing that crossed their path, tearing them to pieces and then crying because they were still so hungry.

Now, though, they had eyes for nothing but the palanquin coming down the ghost road from the east, the direction of Lake Scarlet. It was borne by six veiled men. Their feet did not quite touch the ground. In the moonlight, it was all silvered, but Chih could tell that by all rights, it should be swathed in imperial red and gold, the mammoth and lion of the empire embroidered in lavish detail on the curtains.

There was only one woman in the world who had the right to show the mammoth and the lion, and she was to be crowned in her first Dragon Court in the capital.

Well, thought Chih, curling their hand around Almost Brilliant for comfort, only one living woman.

Chih bowed as low as the ghosts around them as the palanquin went by, wishing with all their might that the late empress would open the drapes and show her face. Would it be the wrinkled woman swathed in thick silks Chih had once glimpsed as a child on Houksen, or would it be a far younger woman, the Empress of Salt and Fortune as she had first come to Anh, before the end of the eternal summer and before the mammoth had trampled the lion?

When Chih straightened, ghosts and road and empress were gone, leaving nothing behind but Chih’s own pounding heart.

“Did you see that?” they asked Almost Brilliant, who had finally stopped shivering.

“Yes,” said the hoopoe, her normally shrill tone subdued. “That was worth being terrified that you were going to die in a truly terrible fashion.”

Chih laughed, smoothing a finger over Almost Brilliant’s crest, and starting the short walk back to their campsite.

“Come on. We can get a few more hours of sleep before we need to pack up and start walking again.”

It took another two days’ walk through the birch barrens before they came to the narrow beach of Lake Scarlet at dusk. The lake itself was almost perfectly circular, formed from the death of a falling star, and farther down the beach Chih saw the low green-tiled roof of the former empress’s compound. To their surprise, there was a lantern lit on the porch built over the water.

“Don’t tell me it’s looters already?”

As they watched, however, an old woman came walking out of the house with a smart step, and when she reached the railing, she stared out over the water and at the indigo sky above, where the stars were stepping forward. Chih was just wondering what to do when the old woman caught sight of them.

“Come over! You can see the lake better from here!”

Almost Brilliant kept her own counsel, so Chih picked their way along the rocky shore of the beach, coming up the shallow steps to the porch just as the last salmon light was leaving the sky. The old woman gestured for them to come closer.

“Come, you’re just in time.”

She indicated that Chih was meant to help themself from the small dish of sesame crackers on the railing, but she herself looked distracted, gazing over the black water and holding one cracker in her hand. After a few moments, she turned down the lantern wick until it emitted only a sullen glow.

“Grandmother, I’m here to—”

“Shush, girl, it’s happening.”

Above was the rapidly darkening sky. All around them was the darkness of the birch barrens, and spread out before them was Lake Scarlet, like a mirror reflecting nothing but night. At first, Chih thought it was their imagination, nothing more than a mirage that came after staring at something too hard, but then they realized that it was real. There was a faint glow coming from the water itself, something like the very last gleam of a dying hearth fire.

“What—”

“Shh. Watch. Just watch.”

Chih held their breath as the soft red glow brightened, sweeping across the lake like the sparks of New Year fireworks. It was brilliant, too hard to look at so very closely, and it flooded the water, enough so they could make out individual trees on the beach, the black silhouette of the night birds on the water, and the seamed face of the woman standing next to them, creased in pleasure.

“I was hoping it would go tonight. It’s still a little cold yet, but it has come even earlier in some years.”

Chih stood side by side with the woman, staring out over the pyrotechnic display before them. Just a short while after the red lights came up to their full brightness, they started to dim again. Chih counted in their head. When they had reached one hundred, there was only a faint reddish glow to the water.

The old woman sighed happily as she turned the lamp back up.

“Every time, it is like the first, and I have not seen it in sixty years. Come inside; it’s still too cold for my brittle bones.”

Chih was old enough to know that no one was harmless, and still young enough to obey instantly that tone of command from an older woman. They followed her into the residence, where she lit several paper lamps. There was a damp chill to the small room they sat in, but the light helped a little. They sat together on the leather cushions around the empty hearth, and the old woman looked a little closer at Chih, taking in their shaved head, belled string, and indigo robes.

“Oh, I see I was mistaken. Not a girl at all, but a cleric.”

Chih smiled.

“It’s an easy mistake, grandmother, but yes. I am Cleric Chih from the Singing Hills abbey. This little feathery menace is Almost Brilliant.”

Almost Brilliant whooped in indignation at being so described and showed off her manners by alighting in front of their hostess and tocking the boards in front of her twice with her narrow beak.

“Most honored to make your acquaintance, matriarch,” Almost Brilliant said in her grumbling gravelly voice.

“And I yours, Mistress Almost Brilliant. If your cleric is from the Singing Hills, you must be a neixin, are you not?”

Almost Brilliant’s feathers fluffed out in pride. “Yes, matriarch. I am descended from the line of Ever Victorious and Always Kind. Our memories go all the way back to the Xun Dynasty.”

“What a pleasure. They killed so many of your kind during the reign of Emperor Sung. I was not sure I would ever see another.”

“The Singing Hills aviary was torched, but our Divine at the time sent three pairs of nesting couples to their relatives across the Hu River,” said Chih. “Among them were Almost Brilliant’s great-grandparents. If you know about neixin, grandmother, you must know how they need to have a place and a name for everything.”

“And I imagine you do as well, don’t you, cleric? Very well. My family name is Sun, but I have always been called Rabbit.” She grinned, showing two teeth that were indeed longer than the ones around them.

“Children used to tease me about it when I was young, but I am very old now, and I have never lost a single tooth.”

Almost Brilliant whistled in satisfaction, and Chih grinned.

“Welcome to your place in history, grandmother. Do you live nearby? I didn’t think anyone was likely to beat me to Lake Scarlet when the word came down about the declassification.”

“I have family that run an inn along the road. It’s funny. The locals think the area is cursed from the red glow of the lake, but I’ve always thought it beautiful. Like bonfires and fireworks. But now that you are here, and Almost Brilliant as well, I am pleased that the true history of Lake Scarlet will be told.”

Chih smiled at Rabbit’s words. She sounded a little like the former Divine, who had always encouraged their acolytes to speak to the florists and the bakers as much as to the warlords and magistrates. Accuracy above all things. You will never remember the great if you do not remember the small.

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About the authors

Nghi Vo

Nghi Vo

NGHI VO is the author of the novels Siren Queen and The Chosen and the Beautiful, as well as the acclaimed novellas When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain and The Empress of Salt and Fortune, a Locus and Ignyte Award finalist and the winner of the Crawford Award and the Hugo Award. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind.

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Reviews

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

3,544 global ratings

Tara Hatchett

Tara Hatchett

5

Lush atmosphere, a gently unwinding story in a novella

Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2024

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Lovely. I really liked the setup of 'here are the stories I know as a servant, passed to you, an 'impartial' cleric, come to catalogue the empress' home in exile after her death and that little by little the layers are drawn away until we get the bigger story. Even in this little novella I was instantly drawn in and found it quite easy to slip into the fullness of this lake house (and the inner palace in the stories, at times). I will happily continue this series!

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2 people found this helpful

Kasey's Book Hoard

Kasey's Book Hoard

5

Lyrical

Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2023

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Today's read: The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Singing Hills Cycle 1) by Nghi Vo

Genre: Asian-inspired fantasy, LGBTQ+ friendly, mystery, novella

Awards: 2021 Hugo for best Novella, 2021 Locus for Best Novella

I very much enjoyed this novella. I didn't read any reviews, so I had no idea what to expect. What I got was a mystery, slowly unpeeled as Chih investigates forgotten belongings from the Empress' past, layer by layer an unexpected truth is revealed. A lyrical and compassionate read about power, oppression, secrets, and loyalty.

A perfect read for the Year of the Rabbit.

Chih, a travelling monk, is collecting stories to save the history of the recently passed Empress. On the journey, they stumble across a dangerous secret.

"When Chih straightened, ghosts and road and empress were gone, leaving nothing behind but Chih’s own pounding heart." ... so begins Story of ghosts and the past that haunts an empire.

Features both non-binary and queer characters.

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3 people found this helpful

Mags

Mags

5

Unusual story which, as it unfolds, draws you in

Reviewed in the United States on November 21, 2021

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[Spoilers ahead] For a story told looking back, there's no preamble or info dump - the author assumes the reader will catch up, as indeed I did. At first this seemed a story of unrelenting cruelty to an young woman given over to be an Emperor's wife as a pawn in a battle between kingdoms. She was not popular and was friendless. She gave birth to a prince and was then sterilized and banished. It all sounded pretty hopeless. Far from it. The story that unfolded revealed a woman of resilience, courage and above all, intelligence. The story is told by an old retainer of the Empress, Rabbit, to a visiting chronicler of history and the masterful strategy is slowly revealed. I started off hesitantly, not sure if I was going to enjoy it, especially as it seemed somewhat passive with its retrospective viewpoint, but I ended up loving it.

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Aaron Schiller

Aaron Schiller

5

Should have read this sooner.

Reviewed in the United States on December 2, 2020

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I avoided this novella for a while because I'm frankly quite tired of all the " [Whatever] of X and Y" titles out there, and now I'm mad at myself for letting that keep me away from this absolutely stellar little story. The characters are so satisfyingly layered, with compelling flaws and deeply-felt motives that kept me emotionally invested for the whole ride. On top of that, the queer characters are well-written and feel like a natural part of the story rather than being shoe-horned in and awkwardly reduced to their gender/sexuality. It made me, as a nonbinary person, incredibly happy to read about a nonbinary character whose gender feels present and relevant within the story, but doesn't serve as their defining characteristic. And there's no forced and clunky Gender 101 talk between characters, which is a tactic that probably has a place somewhere but always ends up feeling both alienating and patronizing to me whenever I encounter it.

Vo really hooked me with the cast of interesting and well-developed characters, but the plot and world-building are also nothing to scoff at. So much is accomplished within a fairly small number of pages-- the writing never feels rushed or utilitarian, but every word brings more depth to the characters, their lives and their world. And although many stories have been written about the fall of one great power and the rise of another, The Empress of Salt and Fortune brings an intimate perspective to this grand undertaking. Battle plans and complex political intrigue clearly take place, but that's not the focus; instead, Vo showcases the private little moments between people that grow to shake the world. It feels human, it feels real, and it's a welcome break from "gritty" fantasy that thinks graphic depictions of bloodshed, rape, and misery are the only way to make an emotional impact.

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7 people found this helpful

Susan York

Susan York

5

So good!

Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2024

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This is a beautiful gem of a story. Unlike many shorter works I have read, it feels rich and complete in itself. The characters are vivid and feel real despite the fantasy aspects of the story. They have flaws and strengths and depth to them. I was moved to tears a few times.

It’s a story that reveals its heart in layers. I hadn’t known much of anything about the plot before I started reading, and about half way through I said “Oh, that’s what’s going on here,” and went back and reread the first part with my new understanding. (And found it well worth the effort to reread).

Many parts of this book will stay with me. But above all, I find it an amazing story of deep friendship and what huge personal costs may be involved in staying true to that friendship. It’s a book that makes you look at the world a little differently, and that’s a rare treat.

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2 people found this helpful

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