Shen Tao
At a glance
Debut author Shen Tao introduces readers to the lush, deadly world of The Poet Empress, a sweeping, epic and intimate fantasy perfect for fans of The Serpent & the Wings of Night, The Song of Achilles and She Who Became the Sun.
Wei Yin is desperate. After the fifth death of a sibling, with her family and village on the brink of starvation, she will do anything to save those she loves.
Even offer herself as concubine to the cruel, dissolute heir of the blood-gutted Azalea House—where poetry magic is power, but women are forbidden to read.
But in a twist of fate, the palace now stands on the knife-edge of civil war, with Wei trapped in its center… with a violent prince.
To save herself and the nation, she must survive the dangers of court, learn to read in secret, and compose the most powerful spell of all. A ballad of love… and death.
"The many political threads become fascinatingly tangled, Tao’s prose gleams with poetic precision, and climactic revelations strike with devastating inevitability."
- Publisher’s Weekly, starred review 🌟
"Resilient and clever, Wei is the heart of the novel, striving to navigate a world of lies and cruelty without becoming cruel herself. She learns to wield power with fidelity to her purpose, and though the novel’s title alludes to her triumph, the story is full of page-turning suspense."
- Kirkus Review
"Tao’s debut is an intricate study of court politics and what a young woman will do to survive."
- Library Journal, starred review 🌟
My sister Larkspur was the fifth child we buried.
It was a cold and misty dawn as Ma and I climbed the hill out of our village, towards the Ancestors. We carried with us only some incense and a bamboo casket small enough I could tuck it under one arm.
The fifth time had been the easiest. She had been so little when she left us, only three days old. When Ma wept yesterday, when Larkspur’s tiny chest had stopped rising, I suspected that she mourned not her daughter but all the extra bowls of rice she’d consumed during her pregnancy, nutrition that was now wasted. Ba didn’t even weep. He might have wept, I thought, if Larkspur had been born a boy.
My brother Bao was still young enough to believe dead girls became kittens in their next life. He liked kittens, so he did not weep either.
So it happened that, of all of us, I was the one who mourned Larkspur the most. Not as much as the other times, but I did cry as we lowered the casket on a bed of poppies at the crest of the hill. As I knelt next to the box on the damp soil, I remembered how I had already nicknamed her in my head. Little Lark. I remembered how I had pictured us chasing each other down the drying rice paddies, her delighted laugh as I showed her the best corners to catch catfish. I remembered how I had imagined braiding her hair, as I thought big sisters ought to do, as we giggled and gossiped about the village boys.
After we lit the incense, I kissed the cold crate. I told the Ancestors to take Larkspur to a place where she would never be hungry.
A place, or a time.
I asked the Ancestors to let her be born again earlier. Perhaps when the Azalea Dynasty was not withering and a dying emperor did not sit the throne. I asked them for a time when the people who ruled over us were still good, and children newly born did not die of a famine nobody knew the cause of.
An earlier time, or perhaps even a later one. When dynasty and emperor and thrones and famine became all a distant memory. I should like Larkspur to be born again then, in a time when all children could learn to read, even poor ones, even girls.
It was not long before the land took her.
Ma and I watched, silent, as tendrils of vines snaked up from the soil and wrapped themselves around the crate. Little white flowers blossomed on the bamboo, and from the canopy above, a nightingale crooned. The country might have forgotten people like us, but the Ancestors still remembered.
Imagine that, in order to save your family and friends from the brink of starvation, you have to date the most douchey and narcissistic poetry bro of all time. Now crank up the stakes: he’s also the ruthless, all-powerful heir to an entire dynasty and you’re his begrudging royal concubine.
That’s life for Wei, who despite her inauspicious circumstances manages to kick ass across every chapter, all while sacrificing exactly zero of her badassery for a man. Prepare yourself for one of the most root-for-able underdogs we’ve ever encountered.
Normally, we love to judge a book by its cover (hot pink horror, anyone?), but this one’s a big-time exception. Because despite the flowery cover art, The Poet Empress is not a romantasy—more of a gritty grimdark historical fantasy, with no love story to speak of. If anything, it’s an anti-romance, following a grand, sweeping hatred: of empire, classism, and misogyny. “How to write a love poem for someone I hated so deeply, with every drop of blood in my veins?” Wei wonders, her contempt so hot and all-consuming it’s almost romantic.
Torture, discussion of CSA, child death.
