I stopped reading this book halfway through because I just couldn't get into it. The plot seemed intriguing, but the execution fell flat for me. The first-person narration felt disjointed, the world-building was either confusing or missing, and the story kept jumping around. The characters also lacked depth. Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the digital ARC in exchange for my honest review.

I was first drawn to this book because of the intriguing premise and the stunning cover artwork. Jingwen is a cabaret dancer in 1930s Shanghai with a secret connection to the city’s underworld. Her grandmother, an elite surgeon to one of Shanghai’s most powerful gangs, expects Jingwen to inherit her legacy. When random attacks on other showgirls begin to occur— their body parts harvested and sewn onto foreign clientele—Jingwen takes it upon herself to discover the root of this evil. What she finds is far more deadly than she can imagine and may be considered the work of the gods themselves.

The book "Calamity" captivates with vivid descriptions of 1930s Shanghai's glamorous cabaret clubs and its underworld, blending ancient gods and modern intrigue. Despite the immersive setting, the characterization, especially of Jingwen, felt muddled and her motivations unclear. As a cabaret dancer torn between wealth and loyalty to her grandmother's gang, Jingwen faces shocking violence and mystifying acts. The narrative's unique blend of Roaring 20s Shanghai, gang dynamics, and mystical elements creates an intriguing backdrop, though the magic system and character depth left some aspects underdeveloped, particularly in the rushed and confusing ending.

This was great! A historical fantasy sent in 1930s Shanghai was beautifully written with vivid descriptions and a touch of dark horror that kept me invested from beginning to end.

I was first drawn to this book because of the intriguing premise and the stunning cover artwork. Jingwen is a cabaret dancer in Shanghai with a secret connection to the city’s underworld. Her grandmother is an elite surgeon to one of Shanghai’s most powerful gangs and Jingwen is expected to inherit her legacy. When random attacks on other showgirls begin to occur — their body parts harvested before being sewn onto foreign clientele — Jingwen takes it upon herself to discover the root of this evil. What she finds is far deadly than she can imagine and may be considered the work of the god’s themselves.

My favorite parts of this book were the descriptions of Shanghai, its criminal underworld, and the glamorous cabaret clubs. I felt fully immersed in the setting and found myself dazzled by the city at the heart of the story. Unfortunately, the rest of the novel’s execution left much to be desired. My largest hang up was with the portrayal of Jingwen. I couldn’t get a read on her motivations and her reactions to the heinous and mystifying acts that occurred were confusing. She was flippant one moment and ruthless the next. Instead of appearing complex, her character ended up feeling muddled.

This is just a personal preference, but I am also not a fan of long chapters. The length often made the pacing feel slow and it was difficult to maintain interest.

Thank you St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

In 1920; Shanghai there is a melting pot due to the influence of colonialism, the Jazz Age in China has taken root. Jingwen is a dancer, hoping to sip champagne and get gold ingots. Jingwen finds herself torn between the life of wealth and merrymaking that she yearns for and the city she calls home. A web of back-alley politics and ancient gods reveals itself to Jingwen, and the mirage that is Shanghai’s nightlife comes crumbling down. Jingwen is harsh, despite the loyalty and love she shows to those she holds dear. She’s present during several shocking acts of violence.. Jingwen is there when a fellow dancer Huahua is found without her lips. Only to see those precise lips on a white woman shortly after. Jingwen’s grandmother is a healer of sorts. Her grandmother wants her to become a healer. One bound to the will of Wang Daojun, the leader of the Society of the Blue Dawn – who are colloquially known as “silverhands” due to their magical prosthetics. Fighting not just for her own safety but that of the other dancers―women who have simultaneously been her bitterest rivals and only friends―Jingwen has no choice but to delve into the city’s underworld. In this treacherous realm of ancient grudges, silver-armed gangsters haunt every alley, foreign playboys broker deals in exclusive back rooms, and the power of gods is wielded and traded like yuan. Jingwen will have to become something more dangerous than her grandmother ever imagined if she hopes to survive the forces.

This is an about the fusing of the luxury of Shanghai, its criminal underbelly, and the powers of the gods. It is a dark read.

I received a copy of Daughter of Calamity by Rosalie M. Lin from St. Martin's Press via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I remember reading the promotional blurbs for Daughter of Calamity in which it was compared to the writing of Nghi Vo. And I'm here to corroborate on this claim. And for someone who is a huge fan of Nghi Vo, this is a compliment of the highest degree. I really got pulled into the dark and fantastical Shanghai that is depicted in Daughter of Calamity as we follow our MC, Jingwen, who is torn between family loyalties and her bond to the showgirls that she spends her time dancing and being rivals with. When something begins to steal the faces of her fellow showgirls, Jingwen finds herself needing to get behind the mystery to protect those around her. It was a story with unexpected twists and intrigue that sinks its claws into you until the very end.

I DNF'd this book at about 50%. I just could not get into it. The plot sounded so interesting but it was not executed well at all. The first person narration was sloppy, the world building confusing or non existent, the story jumped around around constantly and the characters were given no depth. Thank you to Net galley and the publishers for the digital ARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Jingwen spends her nights as a showgirl at the Paramount, one of the most lavish clubs in Shanghai, competing ruthlessly to charm wealthy patrons. To cap off her shifts, she runs money for her grandmother, the exclusive surgeon to the most powerful gang in the city.
When a series of cabaret dancers are targeted -the attacker stealing their faces-Jingwen fears she could be next.
And as the faces of the dancers start appearing on wealthy foreign socialites, she realizes Shanghai's glittering mirage of carefree luxury comes at a terrible price. Fighting not just for her own safety but that of the other dancers-women who have simultaneously been her bitterest rivals and only friends- Jingwen has no choice but to delve into the city's underworld.
Jingwen will have to become something far stranger and more dangerous than her grandmother ever imagined if she hopes to survive the forces waiting to sell Shanghai's bones.
This book for sure was a mixed bag in my opinion. Going into this book I was interested in the concept or 1930’s Shanghai and the idea of the many faces we put on when it comes to handling society. Including the dancing and how it can be its own language.
The main character was borderline plain with little sparks of interesting aspects including her relation to the gang and her search for the person who is mutilating dancers.
The storyline just wasn’t it for me. I kept losing interest and found myself constantly checking to see how much pages I had left to finish the book. Typically I’d end up dnfing a book that had me like this but I soldiered on.
Overall this book felt like honestly a complete waste of a book. It sounds mean I know. The author has promise to make amazing work but this book just wasn’t it. My rating was originally a 3 but it dropped to a 2.
I would not recommend this book.

Thanks for the folks at NetGalley for a copy of this book. My review is a honest reflection of my feelings of my book.

Thank you to NetGalley, St Martins Press and the author for this eARC to read and review!!

I was so looking forward to this one … the cover and the synopsis caught my attention and I really thought I would devour it! The idea of women cabaret dancers having their faces stolen & sold on the black market to the wealthy was an attention grabber for sure. I couldn’t wait to see where that went!

The first chapter about knocked my socks off … and left me slack jawed & totally hooked … but then … it just kind of fell off for me. Darn.

The writing is definitely poetic & has a way of plopping you right down in the middle of 1930s shady & secretive Shanghai. You can feel the sinister tension between the characters & their fight. But that’s where the excitement ended for this reader. I couldn’t stay engaged & found myself lost at times.

Although beautifully crafted with great bones, I just felt the story was hard to follow & lacked the flow & development to keep me invested in the story. Best wishes to the author on future endeavors!

Rosalie M. Lin put her tale in the flapper era of Shanghai, a century ago. Jingwen’s grandmother performs magical surgery to give gangsters silver arms. She wants Jingwen to be her apprentice, but Jingwen only wants to dance in the clubs. Unfortunately Shamans are coming to the city, and they want to take control from the gangs that control the city. They also want to bring back an ancient Chinese god, the Daughter of Calamity (hard from St. Martin's Press) to destroy the city. At the same time something is stealing face parts, like mouths and eyes from the dancers Jingwen. And there is an American Doctor getting involved with the city and he is sponsoring a dance troupe, starring Jingwen, to tell a current version of the Calamity tale. Excellent. I hope this shows up on some award nominations.

3.5/5 ⭐️

Thanks to NetGalley & St. Martin's Press for providing an eARC of Daughter of Calamity in exchange for this honest review.

🌸 Release Date: June 18 2024
🌸 Vibes:
- Roaring 20s in Shanghai
- Gangs, drugs, and gods
- Unreliable narrator

🌸 Quick Synopsis

Our protagonist, Jingwen (Vilma), is a cabaret dancer at the Paramount, and also the go between for her surgeon grandmother and the Society of the Blue Dawn (aka the ruling gang of Shanghai). Her grandmother wants Jingwen to apprentice in the illicit surgeries that she performs for the gang, replacing limbs with silver ones that give the owner unnatural speed and strength. Jingwen, however, is happier to dance the night away and fight the other girls for their best prospects.

After meeting a charming American doctor, who so happens to make Jingwen the lead dancer in the East Sea Follies newest production, Jingwen is immersed in the strange and mysterious happenings in Shanghai that involve the stealing of dancer's faces, drugs, and gods.


🌸 Review

Let me start by saying that the gods & magic at play in this world are so incredibly interesting and unique. The thing about it all is that you can't really know what happened or not since the characters are high out of their minds very often. Did that bother me? No, I think that made it all the more interesting and vivid so that yu could feel the paranoia.

I also really loved the focus on the dancers and how no one else really would have cared to protect them, because let's be real - that is 100% how women in SW are treated. Pretty objects and then ignored once their beauty is diminished.

So why not 5 stars? The focus on the stage production and Sui Feng's methods for teaching the dancers was very meh, and Jingwen was just so wishy-washy on sides between the Society of the Blue Dawn and The Court of Exiles. The ending also was very underwhelming. I would have LOVED to see those faceless girls be free to strike down all those men that hurt and used them.

This book takes place in Shanghai. By night, Jingwen is one of Paramount's cabaret dancers, and by day she helps her grandmother deliver bones. Her grandmother has a special power that she once stole from god, and now she works for gangsters who harm innocent girls. To protect the Shanghai girls, Jingwen agrees to kill the gangster leader and frame her grandmother for his death. 
 
This book had an interesting plot and caught my attention with the historical aspect of Shanghai in the 1930s but the magical realism part was somehow lost to me.

There's a lot going on in this book:
- competition between dancers wanting to attract the attention of wealthy men
- the dangerous world of gangsters 
- involvement of shamans, gods and demons

Overall, interesting concept but sadly I was not fully engaged in this book. I hope it connects well with others!

Jingwen is a Shanghai dancer in the 1930s, there is someone going around taking body parts from the dancers and stealing parts of their faces for the rich women of Shanghai. Fortunately Jingwen is able to go down into the underworld of Shanghai and learn its secrets to try and save the women and as it turns out, she will end up saving the city itself.

This book was just not for me; it was disjointed and confusing in its narration and therefore there were very few times that I was fully engaged in the story itself. I think the lead in took too long and I never really became invested in any character or storyline. I’m sure there is an audience for this novel, but it wasn’t me. I ended up listening to much of it because it went faster than reading it and the narrator was very good.

3.25

Thank you to St Martins Press and NetGalley for the Arc to review

This was unique in all of the rights ways, but it was just missing something for me.

The story is set in 1930's Shanghai (which I loved). Our main character a cabaret dancer, granddaughter to basically a magical surgeon. There's gangsters, there's corruption, there is a darkly fascinating magic within the city, all of which captured my attention.

I think the major area I felt a disconnect as the story progressed was due to characterization, not only of the main character, but literally none of the characters really felt fleshed out for me. I had a difficult time connecting to them, and as a result I kind of felt left out of the story. I couldn't find it in me to care about the relationships that they were building or any of their interactions. I also think the magic system was really cool and unique. There were some borderline horror aspects to it that I actually really enjoyed, I felt like it wasn't too much but just enough to make it shocking and memorable. My issue is that Liqing (Jingwen's grandmother) was the most interesting character in the whole story and I did not get enough of her. The magic itself was never really explained and then the ending wrapped up in such a fast and confusing way and I feel like none of my questions were even remotely answered. I think I loved all of the ideas, but got lost in the execution.

Thanks to Netgalley for the arc in exchange for an honest review.

I want to sit in a dark, cabaret corner and slowly sip on the cocktail of chaos that is Daughter of Calamity by Rosalie M. Lin. I absolutely loved this book. It’s a breathtaking story that proudly stands on its own like the most beautiful woman in the club, and it steals the attention of potential suitors and rival dancers alike.

The Shanghai night is alive with the sounds of jazz spilling from the city’s many dance clubs. At the Paramount, Jingwen charms and dances with wealthy patrons, hoping to win their favor and the gifts and access that come with it. Yet, her grandmother and the Blue Dawn gang are forever a shadow hovering outside the edges of her glamorous world. Both find Jingwen’s lifestyle distasteful and hope she will follow in her grandmother’s footsteps as the gang’s magical surgeon before Shanghai eats her alive. But Jingwen finds that she is good at courting danger and searches for power to protect the version of Shanghai she loves.

This story is overwhelming, in a good way, because it’s so outrageously and beautifully descriptive. Like Shanghai’s alluring dancing girls, Lin takes the reader by the hand and pulls us through the city while sparing no details. She makes us hear the wheel of a rickshaw moving on the street, see the hazy glow of neon signs, smell the pork belly cooking at an outdoor stall, and hear the stillness of a forgotten city temple. Calamity is a cacophony of senses that puts the readers in a Shangai dreamscape where the overflowing details warp reality. Lin’s writing is addictive and poetic, and she strung me along without so much as a glance back to see if I could keep up.

Shanghai in the 1930s is a kaleidoscope warping the old and new worlds into hypnotic patterns. Lin constantly showcases how foreign powers have influenced and smothered the culture. And Jingwen is a fantastic character to move through this changing world because she’s a woman embracing the modern era while still having roots in the old ways thanks to her grandmother. Calamity is a constant clash of old and new, and I love that the lines are so blurred. Monks honor forgotten gods in their run-down temples sandwiched between dancing clubs and French patisseries. Dancers wear qipaos and fringed dresses to dance the tango while traditional folk dances are lost. Lin even makes a point to show the evolution between Jingwen and her mother, both dancers who follow the styles and makeup trends of their era. The constant clash made it feel like the world was constantly shifting underneath my feet, and it enhanced the magical realism sprinkled throughout the plot.

So much emotion was removed from Calamity, and it was done well and purposefully. Lin does not allow emotions to cloud anything, and the events unfold in a matter-of-fact manner that feels eerie and cold. As someone who actively chases books that make me cry, believe me when I tell you this numb, dispassionate perspective was dope. This is not a story to question the morality of decisions or what is considered right or wrong. The story just is, and it allows for calamity to wreak havoc on Shanghai like a detached, immortal entity should.

This story will continue to reveal new wonders the longer I sit with it. I want to bottle the thoughts and feelings brought out by this book, but it’s impossible. The story is so layered thematically that as I start to unravel one, it gets tangled with another, and I end up starting at the beginning. It’s a glamorous and deadly fever dream whose haze I can’t quite shake, and I’m fine with nursing my headache in the morning if it means I get to keep dancing with the Daughter of Calamity.

Rating: Daughter of Calamity - 10/10
-Brandee

DNF. I got through 100 pages without anything really happening. I’m not sure what direction the story is going in or the point? There being no plot movement almost 1/3 of the way through the book is a no form me. The vibes were decent and I enjoyed the dark elements of Shanghai, but there just wasn’t any substance.

Thank you to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and the author for sending me an early copy.

In Daughter of Calamity, Shanghai is the main character in a world of dance, drugs, gangs, and magic.
Jingwen spends her nights as a cabaret dancer at the Paramount, one of the most lavish clubs in Shanghai, charming wealthy patrons for money. In her precious downtime, she runs money for her grandmother, the exclusive surgeon to the most powerful gang in the city. She continues to rebuff her grandmother’s attempts for her to take over. Things become more complicated when many of the cabaret dancers are attacked with portions of their faces removed. Jingwen fears she could be next. Shanghai now has her firm in its sinister grasp.
Rosalie M. Lin skillfully brings Shanghai to life. Readers see it in not just the settings, but in the characters as well. Each one is an element of the city personified. Jingwen and the dancers are people trying just to get by. They provide glitz and glamour but under that glitter, they are struggling to survive and doing their best. Bailey exemplifies the greed of the city while Liqing embodies its wickedness. I’ll leave the other characters and their vices and virtues for you to find out.
Lin blends horror beautifully into the story. There is a Suspiria vibe that I would love to see recreated on the big screen. Dancing, Jingwen’s savior, becomes her curse. From that moment on, tension is tight as our character must battle more than just a greedy foreigner. Magic and mythology layer the events creating a volatile climax.
Though this seems to be a standalone, the story leaves room for more. And I want more. I wasn’t ready to leave Shanghai; that city has me in its grasp just like each character.

Unfortunately, this read was a DNF for me around 35%. I loved the gorgeous cover, historical fiction fantasy description, and love reading about AAPI protagonists, but I found the writing overly descriptive and just could not stay invested in the plot.

There were a lot of things I liked about this book. It had Jade City undertones that I enjoyed. The world building felt unique in some ways. I loved the premise of the book. I loved the roaring 20s in Shanghai backdrop. The writing was beautiful, hence the extra star.

The slow burn romance wasn't slow enough? It just felt like there wasn't much of a romantic foundation, just more of a "you're here and we kind of did this thing together, so I love you" kind of vibe. I wanted to love the side characters. I wanted the main characters to be interesting. It was okay. I didn't hate it. I'm glad I read it.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review is voluntarily written and the thoughts and opinions contained in this review are my own.

Thank you so much to St. Martin’s Press and Rosalie M. Lin for a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

Set in 1930’s Shanghai, Jingwen is a showgirl at a very famous club, the Paramount, where she charms and competes for the attention of the wealthy patrons of the club. Her grandmother is also a surgeon for Shanghai’s most powerful gang. In a city of crime, another horrifying theft happens. Someone is stealing the faces of the beautiful dancers. Jingwen in concern for her safety goes deep into the criminal underworld to find the thief and protect herself and other dancers. With unlikely alliances and fearsome foes, she finds that this is much more strange than she could have prepared for.

3/5

This book had such an interesting world, highlighting the dark night life of Shanghai. I always enjoy unlikely allies romantic subplot. This gave me “These Violent Delights” by Chloe Gong and “The Last Bloodcarver” by Vanessa Le vibes. It was dark, gory, and strange. Although I found it a little difficult to stay engaged at times, I still enjoyed it over all.