It was okay, but not so good. A fantasy novella with an interesting plot and characters but It didn’t drive me crazy.

Excellent blending of two divergent fairy tale traditions! The pacing was good with the novels structure, and I liked the strong female characters.

https://lesbrary.com/sam-reviews-burning-roses-by-s-l-huang/

I don’t want to spoil too much about Burning Roses by S.L. Huang, because first and foremost it is short. It is a proper novella, clocking in at just over 150 pages long. If you can get your hands on this little volume, I recommend you slap on some sunscreen and take it out to a nice park bench for an hour or two. That’s what I did, and I had a lovely time with it.

Burning Roses asks the question, “what if Little Red Riding Hood and the mythic archer Hou Yi were traumatized, middle-aged lesbians?” World-weary and with most of their stories already behind them, Rosa (Riding Hood’s actual name) and Hou Yi are practically the only characters in this book, and spend most of it slowly teasing out of each other just how badly they’ve messed up their own lives. I found both characters fairly compelling pretty quickly, and I didn’t have any trouble turning pages to see more of them. The worldbuilding is slightly less strong; set in a fairy-tale version of Europe and China, Huang mixes vague but evocative fantasy staples like sorcery and rampaging monsters with the more specific novum of grundwirgen, talking animals or human-animal shapeshifters that stand in for all Grimm- and Lang-style bestial characters. Thankfully, the book just isn’t long enough for this mismatch of specificity to become jarring.

In that respect, the length of Burning Roses does a lot of work both for and against it. I got the feeling that if it were longer, Huang might have been tempted to spiral out into unnecessary worldbuilding, where instead what we got is really all we need to serve the story. On the other hand, I don’t think anyone will be rereading Burning Roses for the thrill of experiencing the arc of Rosa’s romance again. Not that it wasn’t heartfelt, it certainly was—but in a slightly shorthanded, “you lesbians reading know the feeling” kind of way. What stood out to me most, however, is that there really isn’t a single chapter—or even a paragraph—out of place in this book. It’s been edited down to a strong, streamlined story; fantastical for sure, but with the very human issues of self-deception and the difficult working of making amends at its core.

When something like that comes along in such a quick and easy package, how could I not recommend it?

Reading this fairy tale-esque novella was such a joy. For such a short book, it packs a punch with the story that made me wish it was longer so I could go deeper into the world. I had a lot of questions about how everything worked and, much like many fairy tales, it felt like a lot of things were glossed over in favor of the story. And I didn’t mind? Truly, I enjoyed reading this book. The lead up took a bit to draw me in which wasn’t great considering how short the story is. I wanted to be pulled in from page one. Liked the characters, loving all the queer fantasy these days and this book is up there with it. But ultimately while it was fun, I don’t see this book sticking with me for long but I liked it in the moment.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was an absolutely solid novella. I really enjoyed it and am definitely looking to read more of this authors work

I have a lot of mixed thoughts about this one. I enjoyed the way SL Huang effortlessly weaved together a myriad of folklore and fairytale stories into Rosa and Hou Yi's backstories (Goldilocks, Chang'e, Beauty and the Beast, to name a few). I loved that both protagonists were older women, both of whom were queer mothers, with complex relationships both to each other, their wives, and their children. However, I do think it suffered from the short form. We spent so much time in Rosa's flashbacks that I feel the present needed to be a touch longer. I would have loved a chance to actually see Hou Yi's past play out in a way other than the dialogue between she and Feng Meng. Overall, it felt like a much larger story that wasn't given time to breathe. However, seeing that this does have connections to two other works that SL Huang wrote, I'm hopeful for a sequel.

This is a Chinese retelling of Red Rising Hood, following Rosa and Hou Yi as they try to stop sunbirds from threatening the countryside.

I really enjoyed the fact that this story follows two older women, who are battle-worn and have seen a lot of the world; I don't think I've read a fantasy that centred middle-aged characters before and it made the book feel really fresh to me.

The story is also sapphic, with Rosa missing her wife and child for a lot of the novel and remembering moments they shared in the past. She wonders whether she can return from estrangement and whether things might be able to go back to being how they once were. The relationship between Rosa and Hou Yi is never fully defined but I think it could be read as queer or queerplantonic and I enjoyed the grumpy-but-caring interactions.

Family is a central theme in the novel and the way this theme defines the ending of the story is emotional and heart-felt. I would have liked a little more clarity on some of the plot (how Rosa and Hou Yi were thrown together, why they decided to continue travelling together, and what they're doing as the story starts) but on the whole I enjoyed reading this and I'm glad I finally picked it up.

Content warnings for family estrangement, on-page death, blood, injuries.

Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this novella.

I adore fairytale retellings, especially diverse retellings, so when I saw “Burning Roses”, I instantly added it to my TBR.

This is a relatively short novella of about 150 pages, but it definitely packed a punch. The pacing was a little off for me and the ending abrupt, but overall I really enjoyed Hou Yi and Rosa’s journey and their backstory.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this one to fans of fairytales and novellas!

Fairy tales frequently feature young protagonists, especially young women, in peril. Some are able to evade dire fates through their own wits, while others must be rescued. Readers seldom see what becomes of them in their middle age, but that’s exactly what Huang takes on in her novella, Burning Roses.

Red Riding Hood, here called Rosa, survived the wolf attack that killed her grandmother. The event convinces her of the evil of the grundwirgen, speaking animals whom her grandmother had tried to teach here were just as much people as humans, but whom her mother had raised her to hate. Her mother’s point proven right, she sets off on a quest to rid the world of grundwirgen, teaming up with Goldie (whom she rescued from bears, and whom she later realizes is a thief and a con artist). But by the time readers meet Rosa, she’s left that life long behind, and now accompanies Hou Yi, the famous archer of Chinese lore, on a quest to keep people safe from unthinking monsters. (Hou Yi is traditionally described as male; here she is female, and she complains that Westerners from Rosa’s lands “insist on calling me a man.”)

Hou Yi, like Rosa, has her own demons to slay, and not just the literal ones. As Hou Yi and Rosa fight off a group of sunbirds, nearly dying from the smoke and fire, Hou Yi is confronted by her own past—the apprentice who turned against her. That apprentice is now a sorcerer, and has raised the sunbirds against Hou Yi in a twisted act of revenge.

But of course, it’s not that simple, either. Hou Yi and Rosa both acknowledge their own troubled pasts, and the wrongs they’ve both done, especially to those they love, weigh them down so heavily they almost cannot bear to move. The relationship between these two women, who truly see each other because they recognize a kinship of regret and repentance, is powerful. Without revealing too much in the way of spoilers, the feeling of the novella is that even in the midst of despair, it is possible to hope—especially when someone else can help carry the burden of your past.

Along with nods to Goldilocks and Little Red Riding Hood, there are additional mentions of Western fairy tales like Puss in Boots and Sleeping Beauty. Hou Yi’s story also closely mirrors the traditional tales, but familiarity with them isn’t required; those who already know the story may catch hints in the story earlier about where the tale will end, but Huang’s use of folklore from both Europe and China is complete within the story, and no additional outside sources are needed to get full enjoyment from the tale.

If there's one thing I love more than queer fairytale retellings, it's multicultural queer fairytale retellings with old lady protagonists.

Burning Roses is a complex fairy tale retelling which mixes fairy tales of the East and West while telling the stories of two women, Rosa and Hou Yi. Both women have done a lot in their lives and have complicated relationships with magic and its place in their world. Rosa (little red riding hood) became a "monster" hunter after the well known death of her grandmother and she came East to Hou Yi's land after her past eventually caught up to her. Hou Yi in contrast was a folk hero of sorts who spent most of her life protecting people until a personal tragedy brought out a dark side of her. At the beginning of the story both are overcome with guilt over some of the things they have done and are living sort of half lives as they try to hide from their pasts. I was not familiar with the tale of Hou Yi going into the story which I think actually helped as it added a bit of mystery, I knew more or less where things were going with Rosa's story but I was less sure about Hou Yi's.

I have some complex thoughts/feelings with this one so I'm just going to jump right in.

What I liked: I love fairy tale retellings in general but being an English reader the majority of the ones I'm familiar with end up being Western fairy tales so I definitely enjoyed seeing a retelling which also featured Eastern fairy tales. I liked the way Huang set up the world as one where magic exists in the whole world but attitudes towards magic etc vary greatly between people of the East and those in the West. Rosa really struggles with the way she views magic/magic users and I liked that aspect of her character arc.

The diversity in general is amazing here. The racial diversity and almost casual queerness of the characters was great to read but the part that impressed me the most was honestly the age of the characters. It feels so rare to get older characters, especially older women, in any kind of genre fiction but especially in fantasy and I loved it! Their concerns and issues are so different than those of a YA protagonist but still felt relatable and I really appreciated getting to read something from such a different POV.

What I didn't like: This book really struggles in the beginning. Being so short I feel like novellas need to grab your attention right away and really pull you in but I felt confused more than anything in the beginning. I honestly didn't really understand what was going on and had to go back and reread the first 10% or so. I think more backstory/exposition at the beginning would have been a huge help to sort of ease readers into the story.

On the one hand, I see why the author chose to write this as a novella but I think it actually would have better if it had been longer. If this was a straightforward "20 years later" take on a well known fairy tale I think the format would have been fine but because Huang has created such a rich and complex world inspired by these fairy tales the story is actually quite different and I would have liked to actually see more of the world building. Jumping into the story in media res hurt the beginning of the story for me and just made it hard for me to feel engaged with the rest of the story in general.

Books like this are the hardest for me to review because I liked several aspects of what it was doing/trying to do but I didn't really like the book as a whole and then I feel bad writing a more negative review. There wasn't really anything wrong with this book but I spent most of the book feeling disconnected from the story and wanting to like it more than I actually did. There's a lot of complex ideas here so don't expect a super easy, light hearted read but I think anyone looking for a more intense, character study kind of book would really enjoy this.

Sadly, something about this one just didn't click with me, even though I'm normally a sucker for retellings. I think it might be because it tries to do so many things at the same time - several different fairytales mixed together, present and flashbacks, mixing eastern and western influences, two protagonists' intertwining stories - far too much for a novella.

I liked that we follow two complex, middle-aged women, both of whom have complicated pasts and have hurt people, I liked how it handles the themes of family and choices and morality. But in the end, I can't avoid the fact that it did not fully work for me.

Recommended to those who like retellings that mix several different influences/traditions, those looking for queer stories (lots of wlw in this one!), and fans of ambiguous morality.

Please—I loved this so much. I keep my eyes open for POC characters, and the fact that there was ALSO LGBT rep. *squeals*

A novella, with the tales of Red Riding Hood, and Hou Yi + extra goodies: Beauty and the Beast and Goldilocks, wrapped up in a bundle. The East is the main setting, with the two main protagonists being women. Rosa (Red Riding Hood) is Latina, and Hou Yi as herself.

It was well balanced, which is surprising for how many retellings there were in the book. It was pulled off flawlessly, diversity in characters, and their development, plot and pace were good. The ambiance of this whole novella was so beautiful, there were cultures of both the East and the West woven in. A very intricate tale.

Another very good novella from S.L. Huang - this time, a re-telling of Red Riding Hood and Hou Yi the Archer (who I was unfamiliar with prior reading this).

Fairy tale re-tellings are not my favourite genre, but I've enjoyed Huang's other work so thought I'd give this a try. I enjoyed it - it has many of the same elements that make Huang's work so good (especially the prose and characterization). I enjoyed the merging of the two fairy tales, which added a dash of originality to the fairy tale(s).

As a novella, we don't get as much world-building/development as we could, but that's ok - we get what we need for the story, and it's well done.

If you're a fan of the Red Riding Hood myth, and also re-tellings, then certainly give this a look. If you're already familiar with Huang's writing, then I'd also recommend you pick this up.

A short, smart mashup of several fairytales (Red Riding Hood, BatB, Goldilocks, Hou Yi) featuring two queer old women as complicated heroes.

Short but effective. Nicely plotted, intriguing world + cast + managed to serve a complete book in 160 pages.

Burning roses combines multiple fairytales into a fantasy novella. It follows two women one inspired by Red Riding Hood the other Robin Hood. There are many other fairytale characters such as a Goldilocks inspired girl. This book is queer.

In Burning Roses, S. L. Huang treats a fairy tale as merely the prologue to the rest of a life. We meet Little Red Riding Hood, Rosa, as an older woman already looking back on her life. The famous encounter with the wolf at her grandmother’s house is long behind her—far from the guiltless little girl we know, Rosa is now a woman who has loved and lost, built and unbuilt a family, and now reckons with the full narrative of her life. As her story nears its conclusion, she wonders if she still has time to change it and find redemption.

Rosa’s life has been built upon prejudice against the Grundwirgen, humans who magically transform themselves into animals. This prejudice’s complexity reflects the messy web of bigotry that readers encounter in their daily lives. It was first kindled in her by her mother’s beliefs and later perpetuated as Rosa grew into a hunter of Grundwirgen, using her grandmother’s rifle in an effort to avenge her death at the hands of a Grundwirgen wolf. He killed her senselessly, despite Rosa’s kindness. “How we are treated is what we become,” said the wolf. It is no shock, then, that Rosa became a hunter.

Yet Rosa resents this part of her that has been fueled by bitterness and disgust towards the Grundwirgen for so long. She knows and repeats to herself, “Grundwirgen might have animal forms, but they are just the same as humans, just the same, no difference…”

Although Rosa has always been motivated by justice, her sense of justice, at times, was incorrect or misguided. Rosa knows “her bigotry had destroyed everything good in her life, and still she couldn’t twist free of it.” In many ways, she feels trapped by her past, believing she must be a bad person undeserving of love because of all the pain she’s caused to innocent people. Indeed, “she could not rail against a destiny she had inflicted upon herself.”

When she eventually runs away from her past life, family and all, she finds Hou Yi, a hero and hunter in her own right. “Until Hou Yi, she’d destroyed everyone she’d sworn loyalty to.” But when she chooses to work alongside Hou Yi for true good, their growing friendship offers Rosa a chance to turn her life around.

Together they hunt sunbirds, gigantic flaming creatures burning villages and towns to the ground. These creatures are unlike Grundwirgen, without an element of humanness to them: they’re “half bird, and all fire.” Huang’s use of flame as a “devouring monster neither Rosa nor Hou Yi could kill” encompasses the conflict between these heroines and their pasts—both obstacles are ephemeral, physically unbeatable, and yet they color and taint every part of their surroundings. While fighting enemies entirely beyond their control, Rosa and Hou Yi hope to win by relinquishing control over their own ability to do evil and instead give themselves over to this righteous cause.

Both motivated by personal quests for redemption, Rosa and Hou Yi save strangers in order to make up for the loved ones they’ve personally betrayed. “Rosa felt the clarity of it—diving to place herself between innocents and danger, the relieving certainty that she’d die doing something clean and right.” Rosa believes she has deeply hurt Mei, her wife, and their child, Xiao Hong, by leaving them behind. Hou Yi similarly believes she has failed her wife, Chang E, and the apprentice, Feng Meng, who was like a son to them both. Feng Meng has even gone so far as to align himself with the sunbirds, in direct opposition to Hou Yi and all that she’s stood for.

Yet as Rosa and Hou Yi tell one another their stories, Huang raises questions as to how their actions have truly been perceived. Rosa inflicts feelings of guilt upon herself, but does her family bear the same ill will towards her? Hou Yi believes Feng Meng turned against her, but does he believe she was the one to turn against him? Their perceptions of their pasts confuse their interpretations of who they think they are. “I would have killed you myself, if we had met back when I was the hero and you were the villain,” Hou Yi says to Rosa. “But you think too much of yourself. Now we are just two old women… Old women who have hurt their children.”

Huang’s characterization of both Rosa and Hou Yi is impeccable. Rarely in fiction or fairy tales do we see two protagonists who are queer, older women of color. Both women are a complex synthesis of fairytale archetypes—hero, hunter, and villain are each represented at different points in both their lives, and they reveal their multiplicities to one another in long conversations over the course of their journey. Burning Roses highlights the joys in peeking into older characters’ lives—far from dismissing or simplifying them, the story pulls generously and compassionately from their lifetimes.

As they travel closer to the island where the sunbirds dwell and where Feng Meng waits, Rosa rails against a past that tells her “this is who you are.” Disbelieving, yet still determined to change, she pushes herself to the edge of everything cruel rooted in her, faces it head-on and asks instead, “who do you want to be?”

This turn toward the future opens a door in Rosa and Hou Yi’s redemption arcs. While our modern fairy tales end in “happily ever after,” Burning Roses focuses more on the bridge between now and then—what is it about love, about companionship, that aids us in becoming better people, setting us on a path to peace? With the magic of transformation always available and the power of old love often hidden in plain sight, Huang delivers one of the best additions to the fairy tale genre in recent years. Burning Roses presents a compelling tale that favors change, the chance to forgive, and—universally—the desire to be forgiven.

When Tor.com started promoting Burning Roses earlier this year I immediately wanted to read it. Look at that cover! Read the plot summary! Everything about it sounds excellent.

Overall Burning Roses is an enjoyable novella but I felt let down in a few parts. Let's start with what I loved. Huang does an amazing job bringing new life to old stories and blending them together in ways I haven't seen before. Rosa was my favourite character in the novella and makes the story imo.

However I find Burning Roses suffers from needing a longer format to tease out parts of the story. I mainly prefer novellas that tell a contained story in a short period of time. The Robin Hood Stories novella duology by Carrie Vaughn is a good example of this format as each novella recounts the events of a single day. Hou Yi's story feels a bit off because we only learn about it from what she tells Rosa. Rosa is the pov character so we learn her story through flashbacks. But in Hou Yi's story only coming to light with the bits and pieces she tells Rosa, it feels a bit like the characters are acting for reasons that aren't very strong or well put together. It dilutes the reasoning and emotions behind the characters choices and makes it kinda anti-climatic.

Burning Roses was still an enjoyable novella that people should still check out if they're interested in a new take on fairy tales. However I don't think it's one I'd reread.

A really interesting take on Western and Chinese fairy tales, well suited to novella length. The writing style didn't particularly resonate with me, but I thought the concept and world were interesting.