Winner of the 2021 Hugo Award for Best Novella.
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.
Staff Choice: Sophie
If you love stories, and the telling of them, you'll love these novellas in which Cleric Chih and their neixin (a talking spirit in bird form) travel their world to record local tales, history, myths, and anything else that makes their head turn with interest. There is generally a surprising amount of danger during the tale-telling, too. I've loved getting lost in these stories of clever empresses, proud tiger spirits, trumpeting mammoths, roving bandits, and divines with not-so-divine pasts. For such slim novellas there is a lot of world here to get lost in!
For all of you who love Becky Chambers books, and other authors that lead with gentleness.
Staff Choice: Iris
Novellas never used to appeal to me in the past, but recently I've been on a bit of a binge. I am completely in awe of authors who have mastered the craft of creating beautifully rich stories, set in evocative worlds and populated by compelling characters, in just a few dozen pages.
In this book we meet a travelling cleric tasked with collecting stories from the past, a handmaiden to a powerful woman in a political marriage, and an exiled empress who needs to bring down her enemies. Despite the scope of the story, it takes its time inviting you in - but "the longer you are here, the harder it is to remember anywhere else".
