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

Product Description 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. Review "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 About the Author Nghi Vo is the author of The Chosen and the Beautiful, a novel reimagining The Great Gatsby, and her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Uncanny Magazine, PodCastle, Lightspeed, and Fireside. Born in Illinois, she lives on the shores of Lake Michigan.Cindy Kay is a Chinese-Thai-American narrator and educator who grew up in the California Bay Area and lives in the Rockies. Her work has been described as listening to a "cozy best friend." She narrates fiction and nonfiction, and has studied Spanish, Portuguese, Thai, and Japanese.