Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea by Rita Chang-Eppig is an engaging and feminist read about the legendary Chinese pirate queen Shek Yeung that, at its core, is an excellent portrait of a woman in a man’s world who carves out a piece of the world for herself against all odds. The character work is beautifully done, and Shek Yeung is so certain Heaven is against mortals that she doesn’t allow herself to live and desire, and it’s enthralling watching her grapple with this reality. This is a book I can see myself returning to.

3.75 Star

The moment I saw how beautiful the cover was especially given that it's Chinese inspired - I was sold!
This was a fun read with a lot of pirate adventure thrown in especially with badass female character who is determined to do everything she can to survive. While it is a swashbuckling book, the themes thrown in were about destiny and gender.

The story pace is pretty fast paced with some time skips which leads to some confusion at times because the time skips seem random. I wish there were moments where the author would slow it down a little. The ending also felt rushed - so I wonder if there maybe a sequel in the works?

Overall, a fun read that I would recommend

Unfortunately this book was a dnf for me. I found the story rather slow paced, as well as not liking all of the talk of different religions in the story.

I was so pleasantly surprised to realize halfway through this book that the protagonist, Shek Yeung, is based on an actual historical figure. Chang-Eppig weaves a fantastical tale with historical elements that never feel forced. I did not mind the explanatory nature of much of the book, and the personal development of Shek Yeung as a leader felt similar to the MC in She Who Became the Sun. Both books helped me appreciate the extent of cautious calculation women in their circumstances had to balance historically in order to both distinguish themselves and... stay alive. Overall, the book did not feel like a slog as some other reviewers have mentioned, and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

I had picked up the eARC a while back and bounced off this book because I wasn't able to focus on it, and at the time was unsure if it was because I wasn't really clicking with any ebook or if it was because the prose was rather dense. After finishing (via audio, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller), I think it was a combination of the two.

While this is compared to stories like Piranesi and The Night Tiger, which made me expect some sort of fantastical element, this is more of a narrative deep dive into Shek Yeung, a Chinese pirate active in the South China Sea in the early 1800s. I love the feminist take on pirates, and I find this era and area of history really fascinating, but I'm not sure how successful this was as a work of fiction. This is a short book, but I slogged through it, and despite being a book about pirates there was a shockingly small amount of action.

I think this was an interesting premise, but for me the execution fell flat.

Shek Yeung (or Zheng Yi Sao, among other names) is one of the most successful pirates in history, and a woman. She operated during the early 1800s in South China Sea. A fierce and fascinating character that I've done some research on before from general interest in women who take up piracy.

This book struggles with pacing I hate to say. Historical fiction has to do a balancing act of building it's story around actual events, and this book is a bit overwhelming in it's conflicts. You got the Portuguese, English, Dutch, Chinese Imperial Fleet, and the interpersonal drama of the Pirate Confederation, as a backdrop against Shek Yeung's internal conflict. There isn't enough time given between events to feel the weight of what's going on. I know it happened historically, but I feel like the entire plotline of the English planning to flood the Opium market, had no influence on the story progression. I know it happened, but it didn't really do this story any favors. There are other things, but I don't want to get into nitpicking.

I loved the title of this book, and I do think the setting was laid out well. It's not very long, and if you're wanting to get a crash course on Shek Yeung and South Asian piracy, I'd say go for it. It's not a romanticized fantasy pirate drama, definitely didn't make me long to sail the seas.

I did a combination of the book and audio and I have to say Emily Woo Zeller did another great job. She is great at capturing the voice of so many different types of characters.

This was a fantastic book, though there were some spots where it seemed to get a little stilted. Overall, it was great, and I would definitely reread. It was good enough for me to seriously think about purchasing a printed book. Also the cover is lovely!

I neither disliked or thoroughly enjoyed this book.
When Shek Yeung sees a Portuguese sailor kill her husband, she immediately forms a plan to keep her part of the ship. Between the Chinese emperor trying to get rid of pirates, the Europeans coming in an trying to rid the seas of pirates for their own gains, and issues among their alliance, Shek Yeung struggles to lead over her crew.
I picked this up because I wanted a pirate book, and though it wasn’t what I was expecting, I didn’t dislike the book. The beginning was slow, the battles took a long time to come to fruition, the small mystery was easily figured out, and the ending was anticlimactic to me.
Thank you NetGalley for sending me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Please note this is NOT a middle grade, or young adult book. It may look like one on the cover, and read like one in the blurb but it has prostitution, violence, sex, etc. i it. Nothing worse than Sarah J. Maas has in Court of Thorn and Roses; but it should be listed as Teen, in my opinion.
Onto my review...

Piracy in Asia looked a bit different than you might think… or at least according to Rita Chang-Eppig and her leading lady in Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea.
We meet our lead gal as she is in a conundrum. Her husband has just passed and she needs to find a way to hold onto the captaincy of her ship, a small fleet, and protect those she loves on board her vessel (and keep herself alive as well). Thus she makes decisions that are justifiable; but perhaps not always in everyone's best interest. Although it is worth noting she is a pirate after all...
In no ways is our leading gal a hero; but she's not a villain either. Instead she is the perfect kind of morally grey character most of us are in life. We make good decisions, we make bad decisions; and overall we just have to keep on moving to stay alive. This is the main theme and take away from Chang-Eppig's story. Sometimes it's just about surviving.

I loved the enduringness of these characters, the detail and narrative of the story was also excellent. Although near the end I was kind of tired of our crew and certainly of our leading gal. You can only hear someone express regret so many times before you lack empathy, sympathy, or even any emotion towards them. And so I think a quicker ending would have served this book and our leading lady better.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

Not sure how pirate fantasy became a trend for 2023, but I would not be mad if it continued into 2024. Shek Yeung was a formidable and complex heroine, and the glimpses into her backstory made reading about her life in the present even more interesting. The connections to real historical events was also an element of this book that I really enjoyed.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea was less fantastical than I'd hoped for. The pacing dragged and I had a hard time staying engaged in Shek Yeung's struggle for power. And yet, the premise and writing was enjoyable. I recommend this one more for the historical fiction readers than for the fantasy set.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The story is a sort of pirate fantasy with a female lead. Overall, it felt a bit shallow and wordy, with not enough that was compelling in the plot to hold my attention for long. Got through most of the book and skimmed rest. Interesting premise, but execution wasn’t quite there for me — sorry!

Historical pirate queen? Yes please! Based on a real woman, this story is more character study than swashbuckling. (Which I loved but important to go in with the right expectations.) It is slow paced and methodical and well-researched and just a feast of a book. Though hopefully our world is at least slightly less brutal now, the themes of what women have to do and who they have to become to survive is unfortunately eternally relevant.

Shek Yeung is just one of a number of woman pirates you'll meet in this fascinating and epic book. Richly realized historical detail combines with expertly paced plotting and nuanced character work to provide a fascinating glimpse into a remarkable historical figure and her contemporaries.

Loved it so much that I bough a copy when it became available as a signed book at my local independent bookstore! Would definitely suggest for friends who love historical fiction :)

Chinese Pirate Queens are finally having a renaissance (hello: our flag means death!) and it is great to have well written books like this at the helm. It took me awhile to review this as I was savouring it so much, much more reflective and thoughtful than exciting or swashbuckling. But you need all sorts of stories!

This had a promising premise, a female pirate breaking gender roles during her time period. I appreciated the commentary on the failures of Chinese society and what encourages people into piratehood.

Unfortunately, the execution to depict the main character’s realistic feat failed for me. I couldn’t properly visualize the scale of the company she commanded, or the forces she was up against. The adventure portion admittedly was enjoyable, but the story didn’t feel fully realized. Possibly it would have benefited from expansion, which might have required several books to do so. The compression forced the story into summary mode when I would have preferred to experience the story with the character.

After the death of her husband and partner, a fierce female pirate must rally her forces against internal and external threats

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy of this book.

I really loved reading this (fictional) historical account of a figure in history that is sadly not well known.

When I read the blurb I immediately put it on my To Read list and then I read it. While the author does start off strong and the story does draw you in the last third of the book lost steam for me.

I was really invested in Shek Yeung's life and admired her life choices to overcome societal gender roles during the time period. The plot faltered when it started off strong as an excellent historical fiction about pirates, solid commentary on the society in China, and what drives people to turn to piracy or how they survive it when thrust into it unwillingly.

Shek Yeung in particular had me eager to learn more, especially knowing some of her history but the book didn't accurately describe the massive size of the fleet she led. It would have been a better read if the reader knew it was the East India Company that she actually went up against instead of the wide brush strokes of the English and Portuguese with no real scope of the massive undertaking that was.

Her story was so captivating until the last third; I really wanted to know what happened to her after the truce between her and the Qing Empire. I mean she brought an empire to the brink where they had to get "foreign barbarians" to stop Shek Yeung and her alliance. And all through this she was fighting for her very survival be it at sea or in childbirth and she inevitably won by outliving her husbands and adversaries.

The book was good if you look at it as a historical commentary on gender roles with a philosophical portrait of Shek Yeung versus the cutthroat pirate adventure it was billed as. I can appreciate Rita Chang-Eppig's portrait of one of the most successful pirates in history and her thoughtful prose but it landed more in the textbook/fictional biography realms rather than an adventure novel.

I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review.