The Tangleroot Palace is a collection of six short stories and a novella spanning different genres: fantasy, science fiction, alternate history, and dystopia with paranormal elements. Although the author is best known for her graphic novel Monstress, this was my first time reading anything written by her and the experience has been, overall, positive. Below are my thoughts and ratings for each story:

⇢ Sympathy for the Bones: ★★
This first story follows a girl who has been trained for years by an old woman to create dolls using bone needles and fill them with hoodoo in order to kill men. It had all the ingredients to be the kind of dark tale I like, but I found it quite predictable and in my opinion it lacked creating a more suspenseful atmosphere.

⇢ The Briar and the Rose: ★★★★
This is a Sapphic retelling of Sleeping Beauty in which a bodyguard tries to save a woman whose body is inhabited by a witch every day of the week except one. It’s a beautifully written short story about losing agency over your own body.

⇢ Call Her Savage: ★★
This is an alternate history sci-fi story in which China is at war with Great Britain. A marshal with superhuman powers returns to the front after years of retirement to carry out an impossible mission. I was confused during the first half because the author suddenly drops the reader into the middle of the action without offering any kind of context. But once I understood what was happening and got into the story, I still couldn’t get interested in the plot.

⇢ The Last Dignity of Man: ★
I really didn’t like this story at all. A corporate billionaire with a Lex Luthor complex tries to find his Superman while creating giant worms for the government.

⇢ Where The Heart Lives: ★★★
This is a story about a young woman who is sent to work in a house next to a dangerous forest inhabited by a witch. I liked the atmospheric setting, found family aspects and the idea of ​​the enchanted forest.

⇢ After the Blood: ★★★
This is a post-apocalyptic story with Amish vampires and where the protagonist tries to survive and protect the people she loves after a virus killed most of the population. One of the darkest stories in this collection, with plenty of action and a plot that left me wanting to read a full novel about these characters.

⇢ Tangleroot Palace: ★★★★
This novella was my favorite story in the collection. A princess is promised to a warlord and decides to run away and search for answers in a dangerous forest. Along the way she meets a strange troupe and joins them. Even though it’s a very predictable story, I really liked that it read like a fairytale with a curse and a romance at the center.

The Tangleroot Palace: Stories has been a ride with enormous highs and decent lows. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this collection overall.

I have mixed feelings on this book and I am struggling to work out my thoughts.
It has highs and lows throughout but it fell on the lower side overall for me

It was a very nice and interesting short stories collection. I'm not usually an horror reader but I liked some of these stories nonetheless.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

From the beautiful cover to the beautiful contents, this book was a fun collection of short stories by Marjorie Liu. If you like her graphic novel series "Monstress" you will love this book. Each story shares elements of fairytale and mythology to create new and fun takes on coming of age stories.

Highly recommend.

Overall I did enjoy The Tangleroot Palace (some stories more, some less), but it was in no way outstanding.

No clue why it took me so long to get to this book. But I finally read it. Once I started reading it I couldn't put it down, it ended up being one of my favorite books of the year.
It is a collection of fantasy short stories. And almost all of them were 5 stars! The one I gave4 stars to was The last dignity of men, but I still very much enjoyed it.
My favorites were the last three stories: Where the heart lives, After the blood and Tangleroot Palace. Man, I wish these were full-length novels! If you love fantasy you need to read this collection, it was amazing.
Thank you to NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Full review to be posted soonish.

I would like to thank the publisher and netgalley for providing me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

English is not my native language so, please, excuse any errors that may have escaped my proofreading.


I received this as an advance reader copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions my own.

As many of you, I knew the author from Monstress, but unlike it, this is not a graphic novel but a collection of short stories. I know many of you are not very keen to short stories, as I once was. And even now it is something that I have to be in the mood for, however, this collection is one of the ones I will absolutely recommend. There are those unusual cases where I would recommend short stories collections because I loved each and every one of them. This is one of those cases.

Although they all have different themes, the dark and outcast, the twisted and fairy tale like make of this a very interesting read. If you are not familiar with the author, I would strongly recommend it, as I think it would give you a very diverse and accurate of what you can expect of the rest of her fiction. It can be read in one sitting or you can savour each short story by rationing one each night before going to sleep.

I do have to confess that one of my favourite things of her writing is her twists. You may be reading something, that at the very beginning looks like some very familiar set up, or that is based on a well know story and when you least expect it. Twist. Turns out, none of the things you were thinking are actually accurate and she has taken you by a different route that is way more enjoyable that what I was initially thinking. And her writing is just so beautiful. She does such a great with her skills in the setting up of each story that, although it will leave you wanting more, it will also leave you totally in awe of the way she unravels and sets up the base for each story. Truly magnificent writing skills.

Short story collections tend to be mixed bags, but I really liked this one overall! There were some really interesting takes on fairy tales - and it feels very hard to find a fresh take these days. Marjorie Liu has such a creative mind- I'm always impressed!

I loved Liu’s Monstress series and wanted to try other books she has written. A very good decision! Here’s a breakdown of the stories in her new anthology, The Tangleroot Place:

Sympathy for the Bones ★★★★
This one was a reread since I didn’t realize I’d already read as part of the anthology, An Apple for the Creature. However, I figured it out but continued to read to see if I’d still like it as much as I had before. The answer? I did; I do! In the story, a witch takes in a little girl and teaches her almost everything she knows—the operative word here being, almost. I love the creepiness even though the ending was expected.

The Briar and the Rose ★★★★
Begins in a way most fairytales don’t and then turns into one that has shades of Sleeping Beauty, The Happy Prince, and Shrek! A woman falls in love with the high-end courtesan she has been hired to guard. Her client, though, is not exactly what she seems. I liked how the sweetness of the romance in this story contrasted with the brutal world it was set in.

Call Her Savage ★★★
This story reiterates being a superhero doesn’t necessarily give you a super happy life! With another female protagonist, this one who has seen too much grief, we enter an alternate timeline and stumble on a war waging between China and Britain. Our heroine is sent on a return-unlikely mission to stop China from being invaded and comes face to face with an old flame. I liked the unashamedness of the blood, gore, and violence that was part of this tale. After all, wars are bloody!

The Last Dignity of Man ★★
Here we get a male protagonist, who has been named after the iconic Superman villain. He has some weird ideas that fell flat for me. What I did like was the palpable feeling of loneliness that jumped right off the pages when I read his story.

After the Blood ★
A world-ending plague turns some people into vampires while others embrace an Amish-esque faith. There was a lot going on, but things didn’t come together well. Neither could I find out why the protagonist had the powers that she did. My least favorite of the bunch.

Where the Heart Lives ★★
More strong female characters existing on both ends of the spectrum, i.e., immortal and mortal, good and bad, magical and non-magic, and so on. When an immortal decides on a way to bring her loneliness to an end, she doesn’t think of how many mere mortal lives she’d be wrecking. Fortunately, a girl who has never had a true family of her own decides to change matters!

The Tangleroot Palace ★★★
A sort of mixture of Princess Bride and the Perfectly Arranged Married trope. I liked it, but I also wasn’t surprised by the way the story unfolded and ended.

Conclusion
Now that I’m looking at my ratings, I can see they are almost evenly divided. Two twos, threes, and fours, and only a single one star. But in case it’s still unclear, I really liked this collection of tales and not only because it had women front and center!

This was a delightful collection of fantastical stories that I really enjoyed. As always with a story collection, there were some that I preferred over others, but as a cohesive whole, I felt that this collection was great. My personal favourites were Sympathy for the Bones, The Briar and the Rose and Where the Heart Lives. Overall, this was a really enjoyable collection that I would definitely recommend.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

One of the best short stories collection I've read in a while. The Tangleroot Palace is magical and haunting. The prose is beautiful, and every single short story has the perfect length and worldbuilding that leaves you wanting more. I absolutely love this book and I'd highly recommend it to those who loves anthology as much as I do.

Honestly I'm a huge fan of Marjorie Liu and I'm glad in the direction she took with this fantasy collection! In fact I liked all the stories a whole lot. Ancient forests and love triumphing with change and hardship. The neatest I think was the tale with the Daoine Sidhe and the girl finding a home. The best was the final tale with Sally not because of any obvious traits but because it synergized so well with the other stories and it just clicked. The editor did a great job in how they ordered the stories because the book really does sort of build on itself despite the fact the stories are not related in topic.
Full review to come on YouTube.

I am sorry if I hadn't reviewed this book. I was supposed to but my life has major changes and I had a hard time finding time to read. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for giving me an opportunity to read this book.

My first “meeting” with Marjorie Liu was with the graphic novel Monstress: when I read the first volume, I thought that the author could write well… With this short story collection I can say I was right.

It’s hard to review short stories that are so different in one post; however, all of them are linked by some common themes: mostly women (women with power, women who want power, women who lose power) in a (dark) fantasy (some times bordering sci-fi) setting.

By knowing this, you should already be intrigued; however, as far as I’m concerned, the best part is that each short story has got a beginning, a middle and an end (I’m not a fan of those short stories that start without actually finishing—sorry, Carver).

Some short stories I liked more (Sympathy For The Bones), some less (Call Her Savage), but my favourite is absolutely the one that gives the collection its title.

I think now it’ll be interesting to read a novel from the author, so to make a comparison and see how she deals with longer plots.

THE TANGLEROOT PALACE by Marjorie Liu pleasantly surprised me. I haven't had a chance to read any short stories by her before now and, in the past, I wasn't always the biggest fan of her longer works. But this collection was so deliciously dark and twisted, filled to the brim with strong female characters, sinister magic, folklore, and little immersive worlds that rise to the surface with startlingly beautiful imagery.

It is quite good for a collection. I only know the author from her Monstress works (which are awesome!). Most of the stories are dark fantasy so if you're a fan of that genre you might enjoy this. As with other collections, some stories worked for me, some did not. Nothing wrong, just a matter of taste.

My fave ones are Sympathy for the Bones, The Briar and the Rose, Where the Heart Lives. I appreciate the author's efforts for her trope-defying plots, yet I would probably give this a four star rating if it's not because the ending of the last story, which still a liiiiittle bit tropey for me

The Tangleroot Palace is a dark yet heartfelt collection of short stories with a sprinkle of magic, horror, and mystery. Creepy, tender, and enthralling in equal measure. I can't wait to read more of Marjorie Liu's work!

The first story, Sympathy for the Bones, pulled me in from the very first line with its eerie atmosphere and trance-like prose. Delightfully macabre with palpable tension. 5/5

The second story, The Briar and The Rose, was my absolute favourite. A forbidden sapphic romance blooming despite a curse and its corruption- wistful and dreamy while maintaining the underlying uneasy tension of the first tale in the collection. 1 million/5 (I can do that, right?)

The following story, The Light and The Fury, was fascinating but not quite as engaging as the ones proceeding it. The atmosphere and characters left me a bit wanting. 3/5

Now, another favourite: The Last Dignity of Man. Revolting and horrific, this story made me hold my breath while the nausea passed and yet had a surprisingly poignant ending. 5/5

The Heart Lives follows with a young woman beginning work in a small home on the edge of a mysterious wood. Those who occupy the home are keeping something from her, she knows, and the strange voices from the underbrush lure her closer to the chilling secrets they hide. 4/5

The penultimate tale, After The Blood, is a spooky vampire cum zombie story of survival and family. A killer opening followed by heartbreaking realization after heartbreaking realization. 4/5

And last but not least, Tangleroot Palace. A princess story where the girl in question has the agency to make her own choices. I felt this would have perhaps worked better as a novella rather than a short story, but loved the mystical aspects (especially the villain). 3.5/5

I would highly recommend this collection!