Book Review: Bat Eater and Other Names for Cora Zeng, by Kylie Lee Baker
It sounds like it would be a downer, and it is indeed horrific and very depressing in parts, but it’s also gripping, active, exciting, sometimes very funny, loving, and hopeful.
Book Review: Don’t Sleep with the Dead, by Nghi Vo (and The Chosen and the Beautiful, and more)
Don’t Sleep with the Dead … delivers some prose that make me sigh with delight and envy, as well as some passages that are harrowing with their intensity and dread.
Review: She who became the Sun
The style of how Parker-Chan writes all of this is vivid, immersive and striking. She uses a variety of imagery and metaphors that describe individuals, gestures, actions and maneuvers that bring the writing to life. Everywhere, the text is rich in detail.
Korean Drama Review: Arang and the Magistrate
Sometimes there are shows that fill you with excitement because they seem like they’ll give their female characters compelling motivations and genuine agency in the plot, only to completely disappoint you by reverting to the same old misogyny and conservatism found in any other show. Arang and the Magistrate was one such show for me. Although I enjoyed watching it in the beginning, I was left with bitterness at the end because the women in the series received such disappointing resolutions to their character arcs. (Warning ahead for spoilers!)
Announcement: Dragon Physician on Radish!
Recently, I was approached by Radish to write for them. We talked and now I am a verified Radish author! For my inaugural serial, I will be publishing the Asian-inspired dragon-racing YA fantasy I have been talking about for a while now. It has been languishing in my hard drive, bypassed by agents, and now — hopefully — it will have a new lease of life on Radish. (Hopefully (again) that it will be a physical book at the end of the journey… Publishers? Bueller?)
Book Review: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
In a secondary fantasy world inspired by early 20th Century China, a young woman’s determination and drive to succeed and excel at any cost runs into the horrors of war, conflict and ancient, suppressed forces in R. F. Kuang’s excellent debut novel, The Poppy War.
