Giving this book a 4 out of 5. Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.

TW non-consensual sexual acts

It was refreshing to see the re-incarnation trope in a Western style fiction book (as an avid Danmei reader!). I absolutely adored following the main characters through the different timelines. They each reflected different aspects of Asian culture throughout history and you could tell the distinct differences in the language used and the environments presented. The twists presenting kept me on my toes and I was guessing how things were going to resolve right up to the last chapter. The erotica caught me off guard at first, but after learning more about the characters I was better able to understand its relevance to the plot.

This book is difficult to put a category on outside of fantasy. I agree with several other reviewers that I would market this not as a romance, because at the end of the day this is a story about breaking the cycle of said romance. Especially in the modern timeline, it is about a young gay Asian man learning about himself and how he fits into the world. It is especially about how he takes agency in his own life and doesn't let others or fate decide things for him.

Overall I really enjoyed this read and want to get a physical copy for my collection!

Reincarnation, living thousands of lives in love with the same person, and messing it up every time. Fantastic. It's a different kind of angst, it's inevitable that it will all go wrong but for thousands of year they still keep trying. Elaborating any further on the specific romantic situations will be extremely spoilery, so I'll just say I loved the dynamics between characters, romantic and otherwise, it really worked for me.

The brief scene with the origin of the term 'cutsleeve'!

I spent much of this book confused and most readers probably will until the very end but I enjoyed the heck out of it. The confusion and trying to keep track of all the moving pieces was actually fun and kept me invested.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for the eARC in exchange for an honest review

I was given an ARC by the publisher in exchange for an honest review

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang is an erotic contemporary and historical fantasy with three timelines. Following the POVs of Dong Xian in 4 BCE, He Shican in 1740, and River in the present day, the love story of two souls across time is explored. Dong Xian was a lower level scholar commissioned to seduce the Emperor by the Dowager Empress, He Shican’s story is intertwined with a fox spirit and a doctor, and River is a young man who gets the attention of an artist that is already attached to another man.

The weaving in of real historical figures and exploring their relationships with each other was one of my favorite parts. There was a richness added to the prose by poetry particularly in Shican's POV.

My favorite POV chapters were Dong Xian’s because of how the Dowager Empress’ villainy manifested. The political moves and how she presented information to Dong Xian is everything I love about villains who know that they are the villain in someone's story.

The charm of River’s chapters really lay in his interactions with others, especially with his sister, Garden, and his friend, Calvin.

I would recommend this to fans of multi-timeline fantasy, readers looking for love stories focusing on Queer Asian men in a historical setting that is not genre Romance, and those looking for books featuring fox spirits from East Asian folklore.

While there was stilted language at times, which I trust has been fixed in the final version of this book, it was so beautifully written. It keeps the reader engaged as they read each storyline, a feat that is not easy when switching between stories.
The characters were serious little sluts, and I love them for it.

I am LOVING this book, and greatly appreciate the chance to read it in advance! I have posted a video regarding the book on my TikTok (kimmmberlycrain) as well as shared to Instagram. What a great book! Happy release!!

What a delightful read! I have a full review coming here and on my blog in the upcoming week but my mental health has been real bad. You know what’s helped with my mental health? This book. 🤓

I received an ARC, of which I am so thankful, and I am so happy to have experienced a book that caught me off guard in a great way. The relationship had layers (time-focused ones) that I wasn’t aware would exist until I starting reading, and while I normally don’t enjoy time-focused stories, I had a fun time with this one!

I’ll go more in detail soon but overall? 3.75 rounded up to 4! Definitely give this one a shot if it’s something you had your eye on!

Rated: 3.5 stars, rounded up

I really enjoyed how this was written. The woven storylines leave you with just enough information to be curious about the rest. However, I think I was marketed this book as a love story, and I don’t think that’s the best descriptor for this book. While it is about love, it’s not necessarily a “love story”, it’s about breaking cycles.

I went into this expecting something else, so I think that’s why I rated it the way I did. I still enjoyed it and I am looking forward to more things by Huang!

I liked the love across time and synchronization of the characters in their past lives. That being said, the modern "river" and "joey" failed to be nearly as interesting and I felt myself wanting much more of the past lives. The ending felt rushed and like nothing was actually accomplished. I was left confused and felt that many things were left unexplained.

This was such a wonderful read about finding your ‘soulmate’ and the lengths people will go to do that. I really enjoyed reading this, the storylines were all very interesting and well thought out, and I especially loved how they were all brought together.
It is kind of hard to categorize this book but I will say whatever it is doing, it’s doing it right.
The premise of this book is about soulmates and the idea that your soul is always seeking out that one person, regardless of what life you are living at that moment. I thought the author did a wonderful job of showing us how we’ve evolved as humans and how we view relationships with one another, especially queer relationships.
There is magic, time jumping, love, sex, obsession, and so many explorations of culture, this book really had it all.

This is one of the most unique novels I've read so far in 2024! Woven across centuries, The Emperor and the Endless Palace follows three main characters in 4 BCE, where an ambitious courtier is called upon to seduce the young emperor; in 1740, where a lonely innkeeper agrees to help a mysterious visitor procure a rare medicine, only to unleash an otherworldly terror instead; and in present-day Los Angeles, where a college student meets a beautiful stranger and cannot shake the feeling they’ve met before.

Each of these seemingly unrelated plotlines are woven together by the twists and turns of fate, as two men are reborn, lifetime after lifetime. Drawn together by forces more powerful than fate, this book explores fate, love, and power.

While I was drawn to the story as a queer romantasy novel, my expectations were a little unfulfilled as the book is definitely light on an actual romance plot. However, the book is fresh, erotic, and full of unexpected twists. Take care by reading the content warnings, as there are explicit scenes and some dubious consent scenes.

This book is a mix of many genres; it’s hard to put it into one box. It’s a fantasy, a romance, an erotica, a mystery, a folklore, lgbt contemporary - and yet also historical fiction. I really enjoyed this story, I thought I knew exactly what was going on and then was thrown through a loop; I liked that. I found this book to be one of the most unique things I’ve read. I do think it could have been longer; there is a chunk of storyline at the end that I want to know more about/think there should be more about. This book made me hopeful, and then sad, haha, but that’s life - and I do respect that real life element, even in a fantastical setting.

A retelling of the Chinese short story "Huang Jiulang" and the cut sleeve tale of Emperor Ai's relationship with Dong XIan, it adds a third reincarnation of those characters in the modern day. I enjoyed the threads individually, but I'm not sure they fully came together.

This book is being marketed very differently than it should be, in my humble opinion. The fantasy element is rich, complex, and dominates the story. It’s rich in folklore, full of emotion, and deeply original.

While it definitely contains erotic elements, the scenes are short and spread out and don’t dominate the plot. I will also give a CW that there is a non-consensual moment that is central to the plot (this is generally a no from me- I’m thinking maybe I didn’t fully grasp what was happening?) The relationships did feel more developed in some timelines than others and I did find myself wanting more chemistry between the two outside of the physical.

However - I do think the timeline hopping was well done and not difficult to follow, the magic systems and folk magic were clear throughout, and the reincarnation element was so fresh.

No, the question is not whether fox spirits exist. The question is: If one comes for you, can you resist it?

The Emperor and the Endless Palace was a drug and sex fueled Cloud Atlas like story woven from Chinese fables, mythology, and historical fiction. Following three timelines from individual point-of-views, Dong Xian 4 BCE, He Shican 1740, and River Present day, the reader is taken on a reincarnation journey as three souls are forever intertwined.

“To put it as simply as possible, our souls are caught in an endless loop. No matter how many lifetimes we endure, we will not be released from an ancient curse. And once upon a lifetime, I made a promise to you that I would break it.”

As the reader travels in and out of each time period, commonalities are revealed and a picture of tangled love and a magical force working to interfere becomes apparent. What is not always so apparent is which reincarnated soul belongs to whom and who are the souls that truly belong together. There's some initial good vs. evil going on but I liked how as the story went on, it does murky up some of that conventional thinking and shows the battles of temptations and freedom of will playing their part.

Dong Xian, this whole time you thought that you were playing the game, only to realize you are the game.

Each timeline, whether it was Dong trying to strategize for power and influence in the Emperor's Palace against the Emperor's grandmother and cousin, He Shican trying to find where he fits in life and escaping his father's disappointment and unrequited from a doctor who took care of him, or River exploring his sexuality and living out for the first time, provided inner workings and deeper layers into these souls. I thought Dong Xian's timeline was the most thought out and worked the best, He Shican's was the most fantastical and River's looped and jumped around a bit too much creating a “does this all make sense?”.

And I don’t know how else to describe a bittersweet feeling inside me— in this moment that I meet him, I realize I might be lonely for the rest of my life.
His name is Joey.

I would consider this at least straddling the erotic line, sex, and drugs, are constantly playing their part. I don't think I could say I felt the, modern conventional, love between the souls but the endlessly drawn to feeling came through. The writing created an easy pace, if not the story always being clear, and I flew through this. If looking for a reincarnation story that plays with temptations and freedom of will, the setting and influence of Chinese fantasy and historical fiction make this an interesting one to pickup.

This is probably my most anticipated debut of the year, and I'm so pleased to say that it exceeded every expectation. I do want to start out the review by saying that I know this is being marketed as a romantasy, and I have to say, I do feel like the marketing of this book is a bit misleading (which is entirely on the publisher, and absolutely no fault of the book or the author whatsoever). I will say straight off the bat that while I believe this is widely marketed as a fantasy romance/romantasy, I would not personally categorize it as a romance at all, seeing as it does not follow the genre conventions of a romance (namely, it does not have a HEA/HFN). It does have fantastical elements, but I would say that it leans more heavily into the folklore vibes than magic fantasy, if that makes sense. Overall, this is a pretty hard book to categorize, and I love that about it, but it does make it difficult for me to try and figure out who exactly I think it's for.

The Emperor and the Endless Palace is, at its core, a love story that follows two people who are connected by the red threads of fate - their connection spans multiple lifespans, and they are re-incarnated and fated to find their way back to each other in every lifetime. We follow this love story through three lifetimes in particular. The first (chronologically), is a re-imagining of the love affair between Emperor Ai and Dong Xian, and a loose retelling of the origin of the term, "cut-sleeve". In the second timeline, we follow an innkeeper who encounters a nine-tailed fox and enlists the help of a doctor. In the present-day timeline, we are following River, a med school student who meets a mysterious stranger at a rave.

There really isn't much of a plot besides just seeing how their love story ends, and how all the different pieces of each timeline comes together, but in my opinion, that is the beauty of this story. It's a quick read, and incredibly captivating. It takes a while to get into the book, but once it gets going (about 60% of the way in), it does not slow down. The book never overstays its welcome, and by the end, I find myself very satisfied with how everything played out.

I don't usually dedicate a whole paragraph to sexual content in my reviews, but I've seen some people describe this as an erotica, and I can't say I agree with that. There is quite a lot of sex in the book, but none of it feels unnecessary, nor is it particularly explicit. Many of the sex scenes are very short (we're talking a few sentences/paragraphs), use mostly euphemisms instead of explicit/direct language, and are not very graphic at all, so I'm just wondering if people calling this erotica have actually, you know, read erotica, or if there is just some sort of higher standard placed on this book because it's so unapologetically queer. Either way, your mileage may vary on this, but I'd personally call this a steamy book, but not necessarly very spicy, if that makes sense at all. All that to say, I don't feel like the sexual content detracts from the book in any way (which seems to be something that other reviewers feel), and I think that calling it an erotica does it a disservice in the sense that someone looking for an erotica will likely be sorely disappointed. That aside, I will say there are instances of sexual abuse/questionable consent, so do keep that in mind in case that is a trigger for you.

I don't really know what else I can say about this book that won't spoil the reading experience for you, because I feel like that was part of the sheer joy that I had coming out of this book. I went in expecting one thing, but got something entirely different, in a way that I never expected but very much needed. I love the way Huang is able to evoke the feeling of being told a folktale, especially in the past timelines, and the writing is honestly just so good.

I guess in the end, I'd say I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes being taken on a ride by the author, and is open to trusting the author to know exactly where to take this story, even if it's not necessarily where you'd anticipate it go. If you enjoy melancholic love stories, folktales, but also a dash of intrigue, I think you should give this a go. I expected a fun fantasy romance, but instead, I got an unapologetically queer, thought-provoking piece of fiction that just truly can't be placed into any closed box, and it's one of those books that reminds me why I love reading.

This was such a fascinating concept! I haven’t had the pleasure of reading any queer fantasy so heavily inspired by Asian folklore and history before, and this book was better than what I’d hoped for (and after reading the synopsis, my hopes were high). I loved switching between the three lifetimes and experiencing these vastly different, yet reminiscent, circumstances, characters and their unique situations. There were ample sex scenes, as that’s something I enjoy when reading a romance, and they were all written incredibly well. My only (minor) qualm I had is with the endings. I loved the heartbreaking breaking of the cycle in River’s story, and found the end of He Chican’s story sad yet satisfying, but I felt like I was missing something with the ending of the original two lovers’ story. It was explained well enough, so I knew what happened, but I would have liked to have SEEN some of that decline before I was TOLD how it ended. Overall, though, I loved this story. I’ve been looking forward to reading this for months, so a HUGE thank you to Harlequin Books for the E-ARC. I cannot recommend this book enough!

I truly do not know what to say about this book. I'm clearly not the target audience for this book, but I didn't hate it. Ia was quick to get through, and a fun read, even if I did find some of the descriptions...needleslly descriptive. Truly a wild ride. But I enjoyed the characters, and the different setttings were immersive. All in all, this would be a fantastic book for someone looking for a deep dive into the relationships between queer, Asian men.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Books for the ARC of The Emperor and the Endless Palace. This is a story about two men who are connected across time and multiple lifetimes.

I will be honest this is not a normal romance. This is definitely a star crossed lovers romance. We meet the two first in 4BC as an Emperor and a clerk who are pushed together through the machinations of others. They fall for each other but others step in the way of them being together. We also meet them in 1740 as an innkeeper and a fox spirit. Once again we see their feelings for each other grow only to be stopped by outside influences. The final lifetime we meet these two is in the present as River and Joey.

The characters themselves are so well fleshed out including all the side characters across their lifetimes. You truly connect with each reincarnation and the way the book is formatted you see how the same story plays out across their lifespans. Justinian does an amazing job of connecting the different timespans into one full story.

The world building is phenomenal as well. I loved the way that Chinese folklore and history was brought into this book with an amazing fantasy spin. The way this book was written I just could not put it down. I was hooked from the very first page and was so curious to see how the story would end. It definitely did not end the way I was thinking it would but I actually really liked the way it did end. The ending may not be for everyone but I think it held so well to the rest of the story that it truly was the only ending that made sense.

This was an amazing book form a debut author and one that you should add to your TBR. While I loved this book please be aware of the following content warnings: drugs, manipulation, sexual assault, violence, homophobia, and cheating.

Thanks to Harlequin & netgalley for ARC. Comes out tomorrow 3/26

“As their many lives intertwine, they begin to realize the power of their undying love—a power that transcends time itself…but one that might consume them both.”

Ok first I will say if you are worried about following three timelines, I wouldn’t be. Everything is so clearly demarcated and the only thing that is confusing is putting together the puzzle pieces of the mystery aspect. The reincarnation element makes you try to fit characters against each other and try to understand the similarities, what is keeping them together across time and how they keep finding each other. And then there’s a really fun twist to it that I actually didn’t see coming but then when it did come it made me have to rearrange everything I had been thinking which I think is good. It wasn’t a gotcha plot twist tho, promise.

The thing I will warn about is that some of the sex scenes, especially in the older incarnations, use some really cringe euphemistic language that was hard to look at but I am choosing to believe it was intentional for the age even tho it took me out of it LMAO. And also I would say there is a warning missing for SA that occurs a few times in the 4 BCE timeline.

Also if you are expecting a perfect compelling romance with unproblematic characters and a buttoned up happily ever after, this aint it. Its messy, dramatic, complicated, and bittersweet. I feel very strongly about open endings but I think this one was executed well and made sense to me in the context of the story. There’s loose ish ends but it makes sense because if the main characters actually sorted their shit out it would have been a massive change in who they were haha.

I found the 4 BCE timeline to be the most interesting and compelling but that’s probably just personal preference. Overall I did like it. Occasionally I found the writing voice to be a little juvenile coming of age-y despite the heavy content matter, but I would still recommend it.

(review posted simultaneously on Instagram)

Thank you to the publisher for my review copy!

I would recommend The Emperor and the Endless Palace to someone who likes a challenging story and is comfortable with not knowing what exactly is going on. So much of this story has revealed about 65% of the way through, and before that it feels like you’re spending your time getting to know the characters. For me, I wish I had gotten to see the mystery that’s introduced from the beginning, I think it would have created more urgency in the story and made it feel like a more plot-driven book.

Those coming to this book hoping for romantasy - it is not necessarily a romance in the traditional sense, with a focus on the lovers from the start. It is a very character driven story, almost like a coming of age story. Some of these adventures and misadventures also involve drug usage, which made the plot confusing to me - the main character often didn’t know what was going on either!

The spice starts right away but the romance is a slow burn.

Nonlinear timeline - very flowy - there’s 3 time POVs (4 BCE, 1740, present day), but time is very fluid even within those povs, with flashbacks and daydreams. I read a portion of the book twice - first by audio and then in print - and still found myself getting confused.

Overall, I’m glad I read this one. After a string of lit fic DNFs, I was looking for a more challenging read to pair with my more traditional romances, and this definitely challenged me! Thanks to @meggatzabookclub for responding to my random dms when I thought I was too dumb for the book.

While it is spicy - readers may want to check out TW/CW - not all spice is consensual or between our main lovers.

🎧 The audiobook was excellent and the three narrators really helped me to cement my place in the timeline.