“What else are we doing here but looking for our little bit of forever? Otherwise, what’s the point?”

SIREN QUEEN is a luminous, deliciously monstrous book about a young, queer Chinese-American woman seeking stardom in a pre-code 1930s Hollywood laced with magic. And it’s as utterly amazing as it sounds! Think the hidden queer Hollywood aspect of THE SEVEN HUSBANDS OF EVELYN HUGO, the exploration of Chinese-American identity and queer history in LAST NIGHT AT THE TELEGRAPH CLUB, and the raw ambition and delicate fantasy elements of SHE WHO BECAME THE SUN, all written with Vo’s signature, captivating style.

I absolutely love the world Vo has created here: it’s rooted in historical reality, with period-typical film styles, infamous personalities, and rampant prejudices, while also enriched with magic throughout. Names are imbued with power, young girls can be turned into changlings, contracts hold more than just legal force, cameras can leech pigment from human skin, women can have tails, and once you become famous, your actual star can rise into the sky. The world-building is both subtle and dramatic, dropped throughout the story in ways consequential and not, creating incredible vibes without getting held up in explanations. Paired with Vo’s beautiful, engrossing language and certain tropes that lend a fairytale-like quality, it’s the kind of story that’s a delight to give yourself over to.

What really sold me on this book, though, is the main character. Luli Wei has a fierce, burning drive to achieve stardom, to break out of the place assigned to her in life at her parents’ laundry in Hungarian Hill and not just act, but play the kinds of roles she wants to play - in her own words, “No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers.” She’s brash and smart, figuring out how to navigate Hollywood with her wits, talent, and beauty, the relationships she builds and the men she manipulates, and sheer determination. Her story illuminates what it’s like for a queer Asian American woman in an industry that is dominated by straight white men.

Vo also shows us how secrets were passed between those on the fringes of Hollywood, everything from which men to avoid and where to get an illegal abortion, to how to trade years of your life for fame and save your love from a sacrificial hunt. This story has a nuanced portrayal of how oppressive structures create and exacerbate tensions between marginalized people operating within those spaces, with discrimination and tokenism leading to manufactured competition and fear fostering policing of expression. The queer representation is fantastic - Luli is a lesbian (though she doesn’t use that word) and has multiple relationships with other queer women and friendships with queer men. I really enjoyed the romance subplots (it’s actually quite steamy in parts!) and this window into the hidden queer culture of the era. And I loved, loved the reclaiming of what is seen as monstrous.

Vo is one of my favorite authors and this book is a definite standout for me. Thanks to Tordotcom and Macmillan Audio for the review copies! The audiobook narrator is Natalie Naudus and she, as usual, does a fantastic job. SIREN QUEEN is out 5/10.

Content warnings: sexual harassment, racism/xenophobia, homophobia, violence, animal attack, suicidal ideation, fires

I can’t believe I haven’t read any of Vo’s work before — her writing is absolutely memorising. Set in 30s Hollywood, where stars live on through the big screens and monsters lurk in the dark corners — our protagonist, a young Chinese-American girl dreams of being a star.

Her rules — no maids, no accents, no sham marriages and no attempts to replace her with imitations.

This was such a clever story weaving issues of racism, sexism, and even LGBTQ rights still relevant to this day. Along with the struggles of trying to break out as a star, there’s the fantasy and magical elements that work so well together.

Emerging with her name, Luli — how much is she willing to give up (and who) to make it on to the big screen? Who are the real monsters here? Are they actual beasts or are they just hidden beneath human-like skin? Will Luli turn into a star or will she just become another monster?

Read this one asap!!

Siren Queen gives an unique fantasy take on 1930s Hollywood. Given that the setting is Hollywood, you will get an insight (despite the magic) of how Old Hollywood was and if you're interested in that, you definitely will like the book in that sense.

Unfortunately, the fantasy of this book was what lost me. Somethings were explained so abstractly that it took me a long while, if at all, to understand what the author was trying to convey. Admittedly, the parts I found more interesting where the commentaries of how minority groups where casted back then which could have easily be done without the magic.

Given that this a very character driven book, I would steer clear if you are into plot driven books.
While I don't mind character driven books, I found that at some point the book slowed down considerably where I couldn't even pin point what the character's motivation where at some point.

Do I recommend it? If you're really into Hollywoodesque and character driven books, give it a go. I wouldn't recommend this based on their magic system alone though.

This is my first time reading Nghi Vo’s work and I feel in love with her beautiful writing style. Siren Queen is a lyrical and rich story of the Golden Age of Hollywood that follows the rise of Luli Wei, an ambitious young Chinese American woman. Luli’s desire to become a Hollywood star begins at a young age, and we see the trials she must overcome as a queer Chinese woman in the 1930s.

I loved the elements of magic that Vo wove through this story. Luli dabbles with immortality, magical dolls and sacrifice. The men who run Hollywood are actual monsters in men’s ware and their screen stars burn bright until they fade away. The writing was beautiful, lush and descriptive and I just enjoyed this book so much. I cannot wait to read more of Nghi Vo’s backlog.

Thank you so much to Tor and NetGalley for an advanced copy.

Thank you Macmillan-Tor/Forge and NetGalley for this Arc.

Wow! That the best way to sum this book up. The beautiful writing, characters you can't but love, story that you didn't expect but draws you in, keeps you there, stunned, breathless, wondering what is the next thing comming! I loved it!

With dreams of being a star on the silver screen, Luli Wei sets herself on a course to make that happen, and she is willing to do just about anything to make her dreams of stardom come true. Along the way she makes some friends, makes some enemies, and maybe even falls in love, or at least in lust, but she never loses that desire to have her name in lights. 

The Siren Queen has so many things that make it enjoyable. It has elements of fantasy and magic, along with an LGBT vibe. I really liked Luli’s story and her determination to obtain what she wants in her life. Luli, along with the other characters, are well developed and, magical elements aside, they are honest in their actions and motivations. The narrative is fast moving and kept me hooked; I wanted to know what was in store for the characters as the story went on. It is a unique tale that I took great pleasure in reading. 

I highly recommend The Siren Queen; it is an enjoyable book that I feel may will enjoy. Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Books for gifting to me an electronic copy of The Siren Queen, given in exchange for an honest review; all opinions are my own.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with this ARC and ARC audiobook.


Description from NetGalley:
"No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers." Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill—but she doesn't care. She’d rather play a monster than a maid.

But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes—even if that means becoming the monster herself.

Let’s start off by saying that the magic system is not thoroughly explained, but I also don’t think that it is very complex. This is a magic light version of old Hollywood with some noir elements in my mind. Luli is very charming, and I found myself rooting for her, both in her personal life but also in her career. The plot is well developed, but I found myself wanting more, especially when there were jumps in time.

Overall: 4/5

This one is for the girlies who want to read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo but they’d rather read fantasy.

Old Hollywood meets monsters in this fantastic novel from Nghi Vo.

Luli Wei wants to make it as an actress during a time when a Chinese American girl has limited roles available to her.

“No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers.”

Monsters, however. Monsters will do just fine.

So she makes her career in a series of films about the legendary Siren Queen, it follows her struggles and triumphs in working for egotistical monsters and producers, her love life, and her personal journey of learning how to be a monster and how to be herself.

The audiobook was perfectly narrated and I loved every minute.

Wow, talk about magical realism. Talk about taking the realities of Old Hollywood and turning it into an atmospheric, spooky tale of how getting onto the silver screen always involved a Faustian bargain with a studio head. Talk about reminding us of some of the issues facing women, minorities, and LGBTQIA+ people in Hollywood and how much worse they were then, how easily they were hidden, how much never came to light, and how we can compare all of that to the Hollywood of today.

This book is as entrancing as the magical and mystical men and women within its pages. It draws you in with lovely, atmospheric prose that paints a timely picture of the Los Angeles area in the era of silent films. Our main character (we don’t ever learn her birth name–the first “name” we know her by is the perfunctory acronym CK) lives with her parents and sister in a Chinese-heavy neighborhood at the bottom of the hills of Calabasas, which are among the Santa Monica Mountains, on the same valley floor as Hollywood itself. Today, the neighborhood where CK’s family would’ve lived is what we know as Tarzana and/or Encino (it’s kind of up in the air as to which one it is). (Incidental bit of real Hollywood trivia: In 1929, RKO bought land in Encino to build a movie studio.) The whole valley was still mostly agriculture in the 1920s and into the mid-1930s, and small businesses reigned. Vo does a great job of painting this picture of dusty streets, hot and dry heat from the constant sunshine, children running around not needing or wanting too much adult supervision and working for their family businesses, minorities and women not earning near enough money for the massive amount of work they do while men worked the fields. And, as ever with the Chinese, family was everything.

But for CK, there is the pull of the nickelodeon. The pull of the silver screen. The screen, the movies, and the stars intrigue her so much she’s willing to make magical deals just to be able to see one movie. But all that changes one day when she accidentally stumbles onto a movie shooting on location near her home. That day knocks the trajectory of her life in a completely different direction, one that leads her directly into the heart of Hollywood’s largest studio and scariest executive.

I loved the narrative manner this book is written in: a memoir, of sorts. It’s almost like an informal memoir not meant for anyone to really read one day. If one was going to write a memoir for public release of their great career as a movie star they wouldn’t have the guts to be as honest as Luli Wei (formerly CK) was in this book. Wouldn’t have been as brash or as honest. Memoirs are meant to be remembered by. This wasn’t meant for public consumption by Luli Wei–this memoir was meant for Luli Wei alone. Her life testimony, in hard copy, meant for her and her alone. (There’s a spoiler involved there, but I’m gonna hush.)

The prose is so lush and gothic, as if Hollywood was a secluded and isolated place only a select few entered and few ever truly left; or, if they did leave, they didn’t leave without leaving something of themselves behind. Imagine Hollywood days to be like a millinery, where everything runs around like a regular business, but people get blood drawn from being stuck with hat pins sometimes during the day, but at night that millinery has a secret opening behind a mirror in the changing room that leads to some sort of faerie realm, where everyone is both what they seem and something else entirely, too. Where human sacrifices are made, blood is spilled, spelled deals are inked, enchanted bargains are shook on, and it seems the night never ends until it needs to and everyone climbs back out through the mirror and back to the harsh reality of costumes that constrict your body, makeup that cakes your face, heels that pinch your toes and give you blisters, women who look at you with equal parts envy and venom, and men who look at you as either trash or property. Meanwhile, in Hollywood, someone always owns you, you always owe somebody something, and someone always owes you something. But as you get older, your social, economic, and political capital will go down. And, with that, so too your star will slowly but surely dim until it no longer shines in the Hollywood sky.

This is a book full of elegant sentences, barbed quotes, deeply flawed female characters, monstrous men, and yet still manages to convey a deep love for Old Hollywood and the sirens of the silver screen. I love how it brings all that love back to us readers while also reminding us that white people weren’t the only beautiful and incandescent stars in the sky back then.

Thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan-Tor/Forge, and Tordotcom for early access to this title in exchange for a fair and honest review.

It's official, I'm obsessed with everything Nghi Vo has written or will write. Her prose is intoxicating, her worlds and ideas absolutely luminous and shattering. I read Siren Queen in a single sitting; I sank down into the words and didn't come up for air until the story was done, breathless and blinking in confusion at where the day had gone. The interweaving of mythoi and folklores in one richly textured tapestry feels especially, extraordinarily, American in a way that suits the pre-Code Hollywood setting and theme so perfectly - American Gods meets Evelyn Hugo, but polished and brittle and sharp as glass. A haunting, mesmerizing, glittering story, full of monsters and magic.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tordotcom for the advance copy in exchange for an honest review!

"Siren Queen" is one of those books that I don't have the vocabulary to review. Nghi Vo has created a masterpiece. On the surface it's about an Asian woman in the 1930s named Luli Wei who goes to Hollywood and becomes a star. Below the surface it's a meditation on fame and stardom and what people will go through to attain success. It's about secrets and relationships and the cost of being true to yourself. It's filled with magic and mystery and a mythology based on real life but Nghi Vo makes it seem brand new. Bravo.

Book received for free through NetGalley

I listened to the audiobook version of this book and although it took a bit to get into I adored the final result. Unique. Awesome. And love the sound of the words being read.

Siren Queen was a super interesting look at celebrity culture and the hunger for fame in Hollywood. I think the idea and the overall plot was super interesting but the execution of the magic and world building was extremely confusing to me. It is intentionally vague and we aren't meant to understand everything fully but unfortunately, I thought the magic sounded really interesting so I wanted to know more than we were given. This is a case of wrong book for me personally because I don't think there's anything wrong with the book itself and I still found it interesting to read even while being confused. It will work for some people, just not a favorite for me unfortunately.

[4 Stars]

I'll consume anything Nghi Vo publishes because it's always a wonderful time, and Siren Queen was no exception. This novel is so haunting and dark in such a wonderful way. I was captivated by this world, just as I was in The Chosen and the Beautiful, because of how mystical everything feels. Vo really knows how to pull in all of your senses for a truly immersive experience.
The main thing that is holding me back from giving this 5 stars is the ending. I feel it was a tad too rushed and that the final relationship wasn't given the amount of page time it deserved.
But overall, a lovely lovely book. Please read this.

If "Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo" was placed in a cruel, fantastical world where monsters were real and all studio contracts were written in blood and not ink, this would be it.

In this dark, lushly painted world Nghi Vo shows what Pre-Code Hollywood would be like if literal monsters in human skin were running it. It's a dangerous, difficult place which is just as likely to make one immortal as it is to erase that person from existence. Almost no one joins Hollywood and comes out unscathed. Blood promises, selling years of one's life, favours in return for pieces of one's soul - we have it all here and for readers who love to immerse themselves in unfamiliar worlds where nothing is explained and things just ARE, this will be an enthralling experience. Familiar real-life topics such as racial inequality, shunning homosexuality and the cut-throat politics of Hollywood blend with the magical and it is the mixture I thoroughly enjoyed.

This book won't be for everybody, but boy, was it for me. If you like absolutely stunning prose and twisted, slightly confusing magical worlds that still center around real-life issues - read it!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Highly recommend!! My first book to read by this author but definitely not my last!! Uniquely and beautifully written, this story and its characters stay with you long after you finish the book.

An enthralling, dark, and atmospheric fantasy that mixes historical fiction with dark fantasy and delivers an original and fascinating story.
This the first book I read by Nghi Vo and I think I will read the rest as this one is brilliant.
It's a slow burning story about choices and what people is ready to pay to reach their goals.
There's racism, misogyny, homophobia and there's an chilling description of Hollywood during the Golden Years.
Luli Wei is an interesting and multilayered characters. They're ready to pay anything to achieve what they want. I didn't like her but I was fascinated.
The author is an excellent storyteller and the world building is well developed. The characters are fleshed out and well rounded.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

I had high expectations going into this one because I know Nghi Vo's novellas are very well loved. I really liked the premise of the book. However, I felt like the book lacked a clear sense of direction. I didn't connect with the characters and felt very detached from them. I feel that if this had been shorter and the magic more consistent maybe it would have been more of a hit with me. On a positive, the writing was lovely, and I do plan on trying more of Nghi Vo's works. The audiobook narrator was fantastic.

“…but today, I was something they had never seen before. A monster, a miracle. A star.”

In Hollywood the monsters on the screen are not the only ones involved in movie making. Coming of age in the Golden Era of Hollywood a Chinese American girl wants to be a movie star. Knowing roles for her would be limited she strikes a bargain with one of the kings of Hollywood: no maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers. She’d rather be a monster. However she knows that the worst monsters, powered by old magic, are not on the movie screen.

This book is one of the most interesting I’ve ever read. It’s noir historical fiction with fantasy and lgbtq+. It’s dark and romantic and beautifully written. Luli is a fantastic character and I loved her journey. A bit of magic is infused throughout the story with all of the characters, but I wish it was explained/explored further, especially for the backstory.
This is my first book by Nghi Vo but it won’t be my last.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

A thrillingly inventive take on old Hollywood, with a strange and sorrowful kind of magic that Vo delights in weaving around and through the tale without ever losing sight of her main character, "Luli." The pull of the plot is thinner than in her previous exceptional THE CHOSEN AND THE BEAUTIFUL (there are some fun nods to that book's world here, which I enjoyed immensely) but the prose and the world are more than enough to make up for the way the story ends rather when it feels like it ought to get going.