Strike the Zither was my first read by Joan He, and I was pleasantly surprised with how deep the story got. I did not realize that it was a retelling until receiving the arc. Thank you to #Netgalley for that.

This read was fast paced, and full of unexpected twists. I was honestly taken by complete surprise when the big one came through at around the 60% mark. I am more than excited to read the upcoming titles in this new series.

High recommend. Please note the content warnings as this work does deal some with aggressive character deaths.

I really enjoyed this story. It took me a minute to get into it but once I did I really got sucked in to the story. I think this was a really unique read. It was such a refreshing take to see an all girl cast ( almost ). I loved it! i am a sucker for gender bent re-telling's, although I was unfamiliar with 'Three Kingdoms', but this has inspired me to acquaint myself with it. I enjoyed the tropes in this, and other fans of found family, forging ones own destiny, and politics will also enjoy it. The plot twist was also very enjoyable! The environment was crafted beautifully and the characters were one of a kind! I am very excited for book two! I also enjoyed the writing style, I will be reading more of Joan He's books now!

Strike the Zither is about an imperial strategist named Zephyr in a historical-meets-fantasy story set in China. I was unfamiliar with the story of the Three Kingdoms and thought this book seemed like an interesting story. I was approved for the audiobook version and was excited to listen to it!

I had a really hard time getting into this book. This is a personal preference but I really disliked the narration. I considered stopping the book at several points because I did not enjoy the performance. This is definitely a me problem but I have a hard time continuing with a narrator for several hours if I don't like the style. The story also throws you in and it took me a while to figure out what was going on. I'm still not really sure what was going on by the time I finished. I was also unfamiliar with the time period and the story of the Three Kingdoms so that might have been part of my problem.

I thought the setting and some of the characters were interesting. There is a twist that I thought was cool and I definitely did not expect. I wonder if I would have enjoyed this book more if I read it instead of listening to it. I'm still kind of confused by the world and I hope that is explored more in future books. It really picked up at the end and I found myself getting much more interested after the twist.

Overall, this audiobook wasn't for me. I would definitely give it a try if it sounds interesting, but you definitely need to push through the first half of the book. I was mentally rating the book two stars until the twist and the ending, which bumped it up to 3 stars from me. Thank you to Tantor Audio and NetGalley for the electronic advanced reader's copy of this audiobook!

As an English teacher living and working in China, I’m always looking for books that cross the cultures - especially those which would appeal to my middle and high school students. I am very unfamiliar with much of Chinese’s long history, so gravitate towards fiction stories that will teach me more. Thus, I was really excited for this novel - especially because the description me timed a strong female protagonist.

However, I was a little disappointed, and very confused by Strike the Zither. The novel starts in what seemed to be the middle of a story. I had no idea what was going on and it took a while to (sort of) figure out. Being unfamiliar with the Chinese literature upon what this was based (Three Kingdoms) seems to have put me at a distinct disadvantage. This means that, perhaps my Chinese students would have a greater understand and appreciation for the book, but my foreign students will probably be as lost as I was.

The “twist” in the middle was additionally confusing. At this point I really considered a DNF, but I persevered.

I DO like that the major characters are all strong , smart and powerful women. In fact the portrayals of women in general was one pro of the book. Men are very much supporting characters. The “romance” was so vague (and again, confusing) it was a non-issue for me.
I know this is the first in a series but the future stories will be a pass for me.

I have always enjoyed how He infuses her storytelling with history and crafts her characters and their world thus. Strike the Zither is no different. Even though the writing could at times ventures towards 'a bit juvenile', I liked the characters and the glimpses of their camaraderie and how they switched interactions based on setting and person. As a retelling of a Chinese epic (which I have not read), it is peopled by strong and compassionate, cold and calculating, sly and hurt main characters that propel the story forward.

In building out the Strategist character, I appreciated the insight into how they would have been trained and learned, and how they developed their own defining strategic characteristics. Putting the zither in the middle as a major medium of communication and how strategists can identify each other was a great plot piece. The female queer energy is high whether it is romantic, platonic or familial.

That reveal in the midpoint of the book was delicious and I loved that He included the importance of societal influences and the supernatural and how it can direct actions. Another good story from He.

Strike the Zither

3.5/5 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced reading copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I was able to listen to this book on audio through the NetGalley app. I found the narrator to be ok. There were times I felt she narrated slower then I would have liked. However I ran into the issue I seem to always have using the NetGalley app, any speed above x1.75 is very echoey. I would even say the audible at x1.75 for me sounded off and weird. I am not sure if this is a function that the app is doing at this point or if it is the audio from the publisher itself. Either way at faster speeds it echoes and gets weird, causes me to listen at a slower speed.

Over all I liked this book. I enjoyed learning about Zephyr and I enjoyed the romance that blooms between her and Crow. Who doesn’t love a forbidden romance? It very Shakespeare. I did find this story took a turn I did not expect. Although I would offer it made it more Interesting to me as it added a fantasy element. I am curious how this will play out in book two as I can see how the “heavens” are intervening into zephyrs plans for Ren. I think book two will really see if Rens fate can be changed by zephyr.

All in all I found the book to be a good listen and it held my attention through most of it. I will more then likely read book two!

A combination of the voice if the person reading the audiobook and the book itself made it very hard for me to ever feel invested in the storyline. Out of all the other similar books I've read/listened to this year this unfortunately was my least favorite.
I was unable to connect with the story and characters.

I received a gifted audiobook from Roaring Brook Press via NetGalley for an honest review. All thoughts are my own.

The year of 414 of the Xin Dynasty, where everything is chaotic. The realm has fractured into three factions. With these factions, three warlordness want to claim the continent for themselves.

Zephyr, a orphan from a young age, has taken control of her fate by becoming the best strategist of the land and serving Xin Ren. Zephyr must defeat many enemies some human and some not.

I enjoy the action and main character Zephyr so much in this audiobook. I fear thought that with my mood lately I was having a hard time following the story. I truly loved how Zephyr faces a the enemies in this book.

I would recommend if you like...
🥷Warrior stories
💘Enemy lovers
✨Fantasy
💪Strong female main character
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦Family
👊Rivals

CW: war, blood, death, animal death (not graphic), vomiting, verbal and physical abuse by a guardian, starvation and famine, some crude language (mild)

I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this one and I meant that in a good wsy. It's like having two books that come together with an unexpected plot twist to bridge the two. The only off part is that the middle of each book is just....well... minor in comparison to the start and finish.

You have an epic beginning with an onslaught of deeply crafted characters. The war, culture and strategy is utterly captivating. Than things taper and slowly pull you through a methodic narrative. Cue the plot twist that had me riveted and adoring the second half even more (all thanks to a little 🐝). Then it tapers again. Slight hints at romance, character connection and politics, but still... slow. I think I'm used to the heavy pace of He's other novels in comparison but I can't deny that I enjoyed this one too.

This was beautifully done and wonderfully narrated by Nancy Wu. Wu narrates effortlessly and made the slower sections move smoother for me. I'm glad I had the ability to request the audio through Tantor. It made the novel stick with me more.

Thank you to Tantor Audio for the ability to review this new release for my honest and unbiased thoughts. I'd recommend this to all readers who've come to love Joan He and her wonderful story telling.

I’ve been looking forward to He’s latest for months! Strike the Zither is an ambitious retelling of the classic Chinese epic, 3 Kingdoms. Not being familiar with the source material, I can’t attest to its accuracy or faithful adaptation, but He has been passionate about the inspiration and her reimagining of the world — centered firmly with women in power and making no excuses for it, immediately drew me in.

The TL;DR — the beginning was gripping, the middle lost me a bit until the twist, and the back end felt rushed, confused, and a bit of a missed opportunity, but I’m still looking forward to book 2.

First, the beginning. I love how Zephyr isn’t meant to be immediately likeable, she’s calculating, cold, and pragmatic, all things that help her excel as a powerful strategist supporting arguably the weaker side in an internal strife for power of the empire. Taking us through Zephyr’s internal plotting and planning immediately shows us that she’s cunning, grounded firmly in loyalty, but also guarding her own secrets. This made her intriguing to say the least, and made me sit up straight and pay attention to all her moves and machinations. I was hooked.

As things progress in the middle though, I felt that spark of cunning within Zephyr started to give as more plot elements and characters were introduced. I wasn’t quite sold on what I think is the central romance. The somewhat insta love aspect felt out of character for Zephyr given her carefulness and cautiousness and Crow never felt like an equal that rivaled or challenged her or her strategic thinking. A true enemies to lovers aspect with a battle of wits instead of daggers would have been amazing and well supported within the story. As things started to stall a bit, both with the romance and the power struggles, the twist finally hits.

I LOVED the twist introduced, however very soon after that it felt like a missed opportunity to seize upon it. I won’t spoil it here, but I felt that after the twist occurs and is explained, nothing really happens with it, we just go back to the same empire struggles as before with little actual character development for Zephyr despite all that she learns. Given what happens, it would have been great to see how Zephyr changes and processes things differently, but instead, we just go back to the same political schemes as before, only now at 200+ pages in, it doesn’t feel as fun and engaging, it felt like a slog with little forward moving progress.

Finally, the ending didn’t leave us with a huge cliffhanger or gasping surprise revelation the way I expected. I think this needed some final crazy ending note to really bring some of the reader’s attention back and give momentum leading into the next book, but instead, everything felt pretty formulaic. It lacked emotion, it lacked punch. It just kind of….ends. You know where we’ll pick up in book 2 — spoiler (not really), more political scheming, and you know the major players — the same 4 that have been involved in the entire book so far, so there isn’t too much to guess at or try to puzzle out between books.

Overall, this was easy to sit down and read through, and I thought the strong beginning did enough to get me to commit to book 2, I just wish the execution in the back half was stronger, as it felt like the book lost the wind in its sails after it hit the revealing twist.

I found this book pretty boring unfortunately. It got really exciting midway when there was a big reveal, but then that reveal was just used for a character change and the story went on as it had done in the first half. It reads like a middle grade book and probably should have been formatted as such, leaving the Big Reveal as a surprise ending and making the second half a new book. I see that this is the first book in a planned duology, but it would probably read better as 4 or five shorter books.

This book really suffers from the usual YA "people under 20 who've somehow gained decades of life experience in order to be at the top of their fields" nonsense. Our lead (and all of the other side characters really) has apparently studied under the tutelage of several masters, for long enough that she misses them, all in about 4 or 5 years. It's nonsensical. The author wrote a middle grade story about adults who she then aged down in order to make it a YA novel and add (off the page) sex.

I received an advanced readers copy in exchange for a review from Netgalley.

Overall, I did enjoy the story and the narrator added their own flare to it. And right from the start we are thrown into the thick of it with our characters on the run from the North which I enjoyed as it was already showing some action. But, from then on it was mostly plot that kept me going. There is very much a lack of explaining the world the story is set in. There's no world building besides our character and their team we follow and the North and South. There is no explanation as to why the North are chasing them in the beginning and the only backstory we get is a little look into the sisters and how they got spilt up when they were younger and even that wasn't explained thoroughly.
There is and isn't a magic system centered around Chi. Even though there is talk of it being used for other things or is shown doing other things (very minimal) we mostly see it used to tell stories while certain characters play an instrument. Not only this, but then we are introduced to the fact that the main character is a god when they die and take over a friends body because the body is still alive but the friends soul is gone.
On top of this a lot of the time it feels like a lot of events are skipped over or occur very fast (Ex. "We have to go south" *flips page* "hello south"). It feels like this not in just traveling parts, but also battles.
Like I said, I did enjoy it for the plot and narrator, but overall it was just okay. In honesty, it feels more like a sequel than the first book in a series. It feels like it is trying to expand on information that we would have gathered reading the first book (like world building, magic systems and character development) but that book didn't exist.

Fanstacllially written book! I was lucky enough to get this arc and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. The politics and world were so detailed and intricate. I honestly couldn't get enough of the politics and strategy! This book does a fantastic job of introducing the characters and the world without being boring.
The main character is a genius and her strength lies within her mind, not in her physical strength. I think that this is a super refreshing main character and I enjoyed reading about her. Watching her strategize her way out of close calls and seeing her fight for her cause is riveting. I also loved her relationship with Crow and seeing her interact with the enemy.
The themes and imagery in this are so beautiful and well done. This is the first book I ever invite them and it is fantastic. I will definitely be checking out their other stories.
The narrator did a very good job with the different voices and personas portrayed.

I think I need more time to properly gather my thoughts and *really* think about how I feel but here’s a list of things I’m sure about:-

- I love that every person in power here was a woman!! We seriously do not get enough of cunning women battling together to win, it was refreshing and so fun to read.
- Political intrigue, if done right in a fantasy is my utmost favourite thing and this book did it!! I loved that there was so much *good* plotting and scheming, my mouth was in a constant state of O because SO CLEVER!
- The author’s writing style was something that quickly drew me in! I was hooked from page 1 but I’ll also have to say that you need to be patient for at least 10% of the book in order to properly appreciate the story. I admit that I was kind of confused in the beginning and the only reason I kept on reading was because Zephyr, our MC, was such an interesting, complicated AND brilliant character.
- I was not at all expecting a romance but there was one and it was kind of enemies to lovers and I was VIBING with it!! I’m especially hyped for the second book to see the development on the romance front!!
- The found family was also something I didn’t expect but really appreciated. Their relationships, loyalty and connections were heartwarming and so sweet!
- There were also lots of talks of war, strategies and so much action! All the war related strategies made me feel pretty dumb because I couldn’t have thought of it myself lol.
- The whole Zither playing was such a unique concept! I’m very much intrigued and I can’t wait to get to see more of it in the next book.

To be honest, I only have good things to say about this book but the reason I gave it 4 stars is because of a plot twist at about 50% mark. It was truly WILD. It literally came out of nowhere and didn’t make much sense to me? Without spoilers, I can’t talk freely about it but nothing was implied and the story kind of lost it’s charm for me after it. Sure, there were some great scenes after that twist that I really enjoyed but that twist didn’t make much sense to me.

Will I read the sequel? Yes, of course I will. I’m way too curious after that ending.

Will I recommend this book to others? Again, yes, I will. AND will also have discussions at length.

Is it one of my favourite fantasy books to exist? Sadly, no. I had super high expectations but apart from that one huge plot twist, I loved everything else so I definitely have high hopes for the sequel!

Thank you so much to Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for my e-arc and RB Media for my alc!

Thank you Netgalley for giving me an audio ARC of this book!

I loved the actor who read this audiobook. I had to look her up because she sounded so familiar, and found that she also read A Tea Steeped in Poison.

As for the plot, it was a mix of war and strategy, identity, gods, friendship, and romance. I think the plot twist about midway through was perfect timing, and I enjoyed both halves of the book.

It's definitely not resolved, and as the author said the duology seems to be best read back to back. It's too bad we'll have to wait for the next one! But if I'm real, I wouldn't have read a 700+ page book anyway, so the split isn't so bad lol.

Strike the Zither is a beautiful and complex book that has a different tone than much of what I read on Young Adult fiction. Zephyr is less focused on romance or even her own well-being than she is on her loyalties and the political games she engages in. I enjoyed reading a young woman as a military strategist and found the convolutions of this story to be fascinating.

Sadly DNF'd this title at 34%. I don't really know who the target audience for this novel is. Usually, even if it's not my kind of book, I can kind of imagine who a book would appeal to.

There's very little introduction to the world of Strike the Zither and the characters we follow through it. You're thrown in immediately into the action, which I don't usually mind, but the setting of Romance of the Three Kingdoms is fairly complex and I feel like some introduction to the world would have been helpful to folks unfamiliar with the four Chinese classics. I also find, aside from the characters being swapped to a largely female cast, the story is told in a straight forward way that doesn't feel like it brings something new to a familiar story.

With an approach to the retelling that was neither here nor there, and with characters that I felt pretty lukewarm about, I sadly can't say I recommend this.

I appreciate that Nancy Wu was the one chosen as narrator, as her background as an actor in Hong Kong lent itself to the narration and pronunciation.

4.5/5 ⭐️
This audiobook was so good! I did not predict the majority of the plot twists, especially the one at the midpoint. Holy cow. I loved that. It was fun to be with a main character whose plans and schemes and actions were secretive, even to us, that I did not know what to expect next.
This was such a fun interesting story that took inspiration from Chinese fairytales and folklore. But what I loved most was all the badass women. Like the majority of the leaders and war lords and generals and strategists were women, which was so cool and refreshing.
Overall, I cannot recommend this story enough. Especially if you enjoyed books like Six Crimson Cranes and Iron Widow, because this was a perfect mash up of those two.
And the narrator did a great job. Each voice felt so right for each character and made it easier to know who was talking.
Thank you to the RB Media, the publishers, and NetGalley for providing the ARC for my honest review.

I have no idea what I just read, and not in a good way. I definitely do not want more of it. *spoilers* The god plot was out of left field, and it felt like the whole structure of the plot collapsed there. Also, what was with the body swapping?

2 stars for uniqueness, but I didn't like anything else. Even the main character is pretty unlikable, and the supporting characters are pretty flat.

I had no issues with the narrator.

I voluntarily listened and reviewed an advanced copy of Strike the Zither by Joan He. All thoughts and opinions are my own. Thanks to NetGalley and Tantor Audio for this ARC.

The concept of this book really drew me in and I was excited to hear a retelling of The Tale of the Three Kingdoms. However, I found it jarring that all the characters were so young and that there was such a slant toward female characters. I know that was the point but it didn't work for me personally. I think a ton of people will love this book so go try it for yourself. I DNFed at 55%.