Of Jade and Dragons is a riveting, steampunk fantasy full of mystery, hidden identities, and engineering marvels.

Aihui Ying is the exceptionally skilled daughter of the famed engineer, Aihui Shan-Jin. After her father is brutally murdered, Ying travels to the capital city of Fei to infiltrate the famed Engineering Guild to find answers. The guild does not accept females though, so Ying disguises herself as her younger brother Min. After a run in with a generous prince, Ye-Yang, she is entered into the trials of mind, body, and soul in hopes of earning a spot in the guild and solving the mystery of why her father was killed. But the more Ying uncovers, the more secrets she is realizing her father has kept from her. And while she trusts Ye-Yang with her identity, she is beginning to wonder if she can trust him with her heart as well.

Of Jade and Dragons was an interesting and engaging story. I really liked the Mulan inspired aspects of Ying having to dress as a male in order to be taken seriously by the guild, and then outshining them all with her intelligence, skill, and creativity. I also liked the engineering, steam/silkpunk elements as well - this created a rich and exciting world full of possibilities. It reminded me a little of the Fire Nation in Avatar, with the inventions. The murder mystery also plays out in the background as Ying keeps running into a mysterious assassin. Meanwhile, she is learning more about her father's past and uncovering secrets of her own. There is a bit of a found family element as well with Ye Yang and Ye Kan. As a YA title, the writing is skewed somewhat on the younger side, so it was a fairly easy and quick read for me. The ending was exciting and left me wanting more from this world.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and PENGUIN GROUP Penguin Young Readers Group | Viking Books for Young Readers for an advanced copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Of Jade and Dragons
By Amber Chen
A Review by Jamilla (@ LandsAwayBooks, a wordpress blog)

These seas can never trap those who are meant to fly.

Anhui Ying, our protagonist, is the eldest daughter of the chieftain and in the eyes of the villagers, an unrepentant delinquent spoiled rotten by her a’ma and wholly unsuitable for matchmaking or marriage.

Fine by her. Her days are spent idyllic at her father’s side, designing and bringing to life any manner of contraptions that come to mind. Her one dream is to be just like her father, to travel to the capital city of the Antaran Isles and become a master in the preeminent Engineer Guild.

One thing stands in her way — only males are allowed to apprentice to the guild.

An impenetrable wall. But, even though it’s a dream deferred, she still has her father and her siblings.

Then, with the flash of a blade, her life is ripped asunder and her beloved father left dead, assassinated.

This cataclysm sends her life spiraling down a different path, one of bloodshed and revenge — against everything her father would have wanted for her.

With new allies at her side, she gains access to the hallowed halls of the Engineer Guild and their famed apprenticeship trial— disguised as a boy, leading her to what at first appears to be everything she has ever dreamed of.

All that glitters is not gold; dark secrets and machinations lie in wait.

Of Jade and Dragons is a solid debut, one with an unsteady pace. Nevertheless, I found myself quite enjoying the cast of characters, especially Ye-Kan and Chang-en and of course the Eight Prince, Ye-yang. As for the heroine, it took some time to warm up to her, as we are almost immediately launched into action and not given enough time to orient ourselves into this world and her place in it. In spite of that, as the story progressed, Ying made for a very daring and impetuous character, I was definitely rooting for her to solve the mystery behind her father’s death and grieve.

OJAD, was a fast read, with assessable prose, however it was attempting to juggle a murder mystery, a trial and a romance and in the end, I feel as if only the romance subplot was done to any justice.(But in this situation who’d have the time for romance, I couldn’t help but wonder.) I found the trials themselves to be well thought out, with the second being especially exciting, but as the MC spends most of the book in the guild training and attending classes… a lot of it being off page, the expected little breadcrumb discoveries I would anticipate with a murder mystery were sparse. That being said, I do think that there is much to enjoy here, and especially by those on the younger end of the YA spectrum not averse to a bit of bloodshed.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

I would have been obsessed with this book as a teenager. Even now, as an adult it was a compelling read. The characters are deeply compelling, and there are some really fascinating twists to keep you engaged throughout, even when the pacing slows slightly. There were opportunities to crisp up the writing or the plotlines, but not in a way where it felt like it undermined the book itself. I look forward to reading the next book in the installment!

One note - I'm so tired of publishing houses pushing books as "XX"-like, citing to some piece of beloved fiction or movie. The reality is this book stands up on its own, not as Mulan-inspired or Mulan-esque. Stop setting books up for failure where readers might feel like it's not "enough" like the beloved original.

I loved this book. I read it so quickly and was engrossed the whole time. The plot kept me guessing and ai enjoyed the chemistry between the two characters. It gave me Mulan vibes, but with a different plot.

1.5/5 stars

I hate when I pick up a promising Asian fantasy with a gorgeous cover and it just doesn't deliver. If I had a nickel for every time that happened, I'd have a couple nickels still too many because I want good Asian rep so bad but alas.

Ying is a bad main character and a little too stupid for my taste. She is reckless and I just knew that she would be like "god I should have stayed away when my father told me :'(" and voila that happened. I don't really know what her plan is, and her motivation fluctuated between wanting to be a female engineer and avenging her father, depending on what was needed for the plot.

Ye-Yang was existing, I guess, and I was not sold on the romance at all. Partly because he's barely there most of the time and when he does show up he and Ying have no deep interactions.

Ye-Kan is the best part of the book and the only reason I rounded up.

Ok. Let me just address the fact that Mulan is the SUPERIOR Disney heroine, princess, whichever you would like to call her. So when I read the synopsis for this book, I thought “ok cool! Mulan but make it STEM // Engineering. Let’s read it!” But Oh my, GOODNESS. I underestimated this so much and it overdelivered in the best way possible???

Firstly, the cover art is visually BEAUTIFUL. Being aphantasic, I would always glance at the cover every now and then just to a vibe check and getter idea of what the airships and inventions would look like as I kept reading the story. So, for me, it helped alot to have it!

Aihui Ying gave all the personality traits of Mulan. Street and Book Smart, Determined, Headstrong, Rebellious, and does whatever it takes to get what she wants (disguising herself as a man of course). Other notable characters are Ye-Yang, Ye-Kan, Anxi, and Chang-En, who all bringing dynamics of their own to the story with their unique personalities, and the relationships they had with Ying and each other.

The main academic plot was great, and it was fun reading how the Trials in the Engineer’s apprenticeship were carried out similar to the Hunger Games (minus the everyone dying part).

What really made this a 5 star read instead of a 4 star read was the ending. This was a Matrix movie moment where everything really slowed down, I became super invested and was ultra immersed in what was going on. It honestly felt refreshing for this genre, and the openendedness of it has allowed the audience to wonder what is coming next for Ying and Ye-Kang.

The notes I had for this was the pacing, political system, and geography. It felt pretty slow for the first 65%, and then it all of a sudden picked up very quickly. This might be a me preference, but I do like it when books have an even and balanced pacing to it, because I will get bored if there is no dynamic shifts through the plot. The political system was confusing too (I think the High Commander had 14 sons, and 4 of them were the main generals...?), and it would have been great to have a political hierarchy and map to get a clearer idea of who and where things and people are situated.

Overall, a great take on the tale of Mulan, and I am eager to know what direction this series will take next! Thank you NetGalley and Viking Books for Young Readers for the eARC!

A Mulan Retelling with a twist from a debut author to watch!

The pacing and plot made this very bingeable. I enjoyed the main character Ying and the dynamics between her and the two male leads. I also loved the idea and overall execution of a Mulan retelling! However, I would have liked more to the world building and character development to give the story a little more depth. Some of the resolutions felt a little to easy to give me any satisfaction.

3.5 rounded up.

3.5 for me.

There were a lot of things I did enjoy about the book, the premise, the characters and plot with lots of tropes I enjoy. But as much there was to love about the book, I was just not able to fully immerse myself in it. It was a pleasant read, but it was not an exciting read where I had trouble putting it down. I think that it might be that at times the writing felt very surface level. I think there were some missed opportunities to really make this silk punk fantasy world and the scenes jump off the pages. Such as the time spent at the Engineers gild. The was a main part of the book and what Ying had always dreamed of joining but had not been allowed simply because she was a woman. Her time going through the trials which last like 6mo if I remember correctly but we never really delve into her time other than one or two instances in-between the trials which were definitely interesting to read. It's just the way this book was described made it seem like a strong competition academia setting and while I did get the competition feel during the trials there was no time in-between to build up the anticipation of the upcoming trial, the back and forth fighting as you fight for what may be only one opening in the guild or even the making of alliances to help each other through the trials which you normally see in competition academic books. Also, this was portrayed as having Mulan influences which I can definitely see but what I loved about that movie was all the near misses Mulan had where her identity/gender may have been discovered drove up the nerves as well made for some comical moments. While there were instances where Ying was at risk of being discovered they just didn't feel the same way. They just felt to easily worked around or solved.

Overall, I enjoyed the premise of the book and what I think the author was trying to convey when it came to showing the consequences of ambition and how the things we create can have everlasting destruction which makes sense with this being centered around engineers and the creations they make that will go towards the war effort. I found the book to be a pleasant easy book to read just not the most exciting one.

This book is about Ying who dreamed of following in her father's footsteps and joining the engineer's guild but was unable to due to her gender. So, she instead spends her time coming up with her own inventions and testing them out under the supervision of her father. That is until one day when coming back from testing an invention she stumbles in on the unaliving of her father by an a$$asin. All she has left is the journal her father commanded her to destroy and the pendant of the man who unalived her father. Using this and some other clues leads to her assuming her younger brother identify and setting out to the capital to join the engineer's gild as all clues seem to point to there and her father's past there that he had kept hidden from her. With the help of an expected ally in the form of a prince, she is able to join as in the trials to join the guild so that she may uncover these secrets her father kept hidden from her and what about it was worth unaliving him for. That is if she can pass the trials while keeping her identity hidden because if she were to be found out it would mean dire consequences for her.

I received an ARC copy from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is an interesting book. It took me a bit to get into, but I'm looking forward to the next book. The ending definitely caught me by surprise, but I feel like everything is not as it seems. It took me a bit to get used to the names because they use their surname and then their given name after that. But I got accustomed to it after a while.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the ARC. I think I had too high expectations for this book. I was excited to read about an engineer fighting in trials for her place and expected the book would be a much faster pace. Unfortunately, the book moved to slow for me and I found it hard to care about Aihui Ying.

Eighteen-year-old Aihui Ying dreams of becoming a world-class engineer like her father, but after his sudden murder, her life falls apart. Left with only a journal of her father’s engineering secrets and a jade pendant snatched from the assassin, a heartbroken Ying follows the trail to the capital and the prestigious Engineers Guild—a place that harbors her father’s hidden past—determined to discover why anyone would threaten a man who ultimately chose a quiet life over fame and fortune.

Disguised as her brother, she manages to infiltrate the guild’s male-only apprenticeship trial with the help of an unlikely ally—Aogiya Ye-yang, the eighth prince of the High Command. Ying must stay one step ahead of her fellow competitors, and those hunting for her father’s journal. Meanwhile the prince may have mysterious plans of his own.

I had a hard time getting into this. I feel like emotion or exploration of motivation is lacking. Ying easily gets to where she needs to be so I felt no sense of journey or drama. She was just there. I also had an issue with her disguise. Maybe there isn't a need for a lot of description but I completely failed to imagine how she could fool everyone into thinking she is a man.

The romance was hard for me to believe in. I just didn't feel anything so a major part of the book had less of an impact on me.

The premise of this is quite interesting. However the writing style held me back and I was never fully immersed in the world.

An interesting tale of engineering and political intrigue.

Aihui Ying dreams of becoming a world-class engineer like her father, but then he's suddenly murdered and her priorities change. Following a trail of clues, Ying ends up at the prestigious Engineers Guild determined to avenge her father. She enters the guild's male-only apprenticeship trial disguised as her brother - and with unlikely Aogiya Ye-yang, the eighth prince of the High Command. As secrets are uncovered and relationships get tangled, Ying doesn't know who she can trust and if she can succeed in her goals.

This book has a lot of the vibes of Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim, and I really enjoyed that aspect. Seeing Ying succeed in engineering, a very male-dominated field in our world as well, was so satisfying. Her approach to the apprenticeship trials was very interesting and I liked the school-like setting.

I am not huge on political fantasies, but I did enjoy seeing the complex relationships Ying developed and how those evolved over the story. I think they will play an even larger role in future books in the series.

Overall, if you enjoy trials, women in STEM, or fast-paced political intrigue in fantasy, I recommend this book. I think it will appeal to a lot of readers and it keeps you hooked throughout reading.

Thank you to the Publisher for my arc!

This was just one of those cases where YA doesn't work for me and for its targeted audience this book would be fantastic for them. but for me sadly I just wasn't invested.

Thank you to Viking Books for the ARC!

As a Chinese girl named Jade who generally loves Asian-inspired fantasies, I really hoped this book would be made for me. Unfortunately, I have to agree with some other reviews in that it felt disappointingly undercooked. The plot and pacing were all over the place, and none of the characters felt real at all to me. My ultimate inability to connect with them and the stakes of the story (which we are told are high, but don't feel that way since the main character sails through everything easily and the timeline is so disjointed), along with the middle-grade-esque writing and lackluster worldbuilding, made this a hard read to push through. The story picked up around the 75% mark, but by then I was simply reading on to find out what would happen and not out of any real connection to the book. I wish I loved this book, and I think it has some interesting ideas, but I just didn't like the execution. That being said, I could see younger YA readers enjoying this more than I did, and I might still pick up a future installment just to see where the story goes.

When I first laid eyes on the cover, I was immediately captivated by its stunning design! As soon as I read the synopsis, I was hooked. A girl disguising herself as a man to enter an engineer’s guild trial and solve her father’s murder? My mind screamed, "Mulan retelling with a twist!" Being a huge fan of Mulan retellings, I knew I had to dive into this book, and I absolutely LOVED IT!

This novel was a delightful and quick read. The protagonist, Ying, is an exceptional character. Intelligent, headstrong, and fiercely determined to uncover the mystery behind her father's death, she carries the story beautifully. Alongside her, the two male leads, Ye-Yang and Ye-Kan, were intriguing, even though they didn’t have as much focus in this book. Their dynamic as friendly academic rivals added a great layer to the story, and I hope to see more of them in book 2.
The Asian fantasy setting combined with a steampunk atmosphere was a perfect backdrop for the tale. It felt fresh and immersive, providing a unique twist to the familiar Mulan narrative.
While the title does mention dragons, it's worth noting that they are not the kind regular fantasy readers might expect. This didn't detract from my enjoyment, but it's good to keep in mind.

Overall, I loved the characters and the story, and I can't wait to read more of Ying’s journey. This book was a fantastic start to what I hope will be an incredible series!

Thank you, NetGalley and Viking Books for Young Readers for this ARC in exchange for an honest review!

"Of Jade and Dragons" is a fun coming-of-age story set in an Asian-inspired world. The main character, Ying, disguises herself as her brother to join an engineering guild and solve her father's murder. (hello, Mulan retelling). The mix of trials, mystery, and romance keeps it interesting.

Ying is relatable and breaks traditional gender roles. The worldbuilding is limited but enough to keep me engaged.

The romance with Prince Yeyang adds emotional depth, and Ying's friendships are heartwarming. The book has some "Hunger Games" vibes with its political themes.

The ending sets up a sequel that I can't wait to read! The story is engaging and fun. It's a great, light read for teens and older readers. Note: I did go into this knowing it was more YA, which helped me enjoy this story - it was the palate cleanser I needed.

Thank you, NetGalley, for the ARC!!

I can see why people are calling it a mulan retelling. It’s mulan. If she was a science nerd.

This is reads very YOUNG YA.

Writing feels a little amateurish. A lot of little mistakes here and there. There was a lot of ongoing sentences.

At the 15% mark I found it hard to want to continue reading. It needs just a little bit more editing.

1.5 stars
Let the record show that I was very excited about this book and it had all the ingredients to be something I'd love, but ultimately everything about this ended up feeling half-baked. Reading this was one of those experiences where I kept having to pause to take note of everything that frustrated me, which can be distilled down to six main complaints:

- This book was set up to have a major focus on engineering, but only had these moments shoe-horned in and never gracefully incorporated in any ways that would support the plot or character development.
- The "high stakes" trial element of this book also always felt like an afterthought and never managed to make the stakes feel as dire as they supposedly were.
- All the characters in this book were faceless cardboard cutouts of people whose actions and motivations would seemingly change on a whim for the sake of plot convenience.
- The world beyond the walls of the engineering guild was never meaningfully explained and left us with no concept of the larger consequences of everything the guild was working towards.
- The book as a whole felt painfully under-edited, immature, and like it desperately needed another round of revisions.
- Despite claiming to be a YA book, everything about the writing and the characters themselves made this feel more like it was intended for a middle-grade audience, but with some romance, violence, brothels, and an 18 year old protagonist forced in so it could pretend to fit into YA.

Ultimately, I think the main reason I have so many complaints about this book is because it had all the bones to be something I could have really enjoyed and loved, but never managed to be anything more than a skeleton. This book read like a (very long) outline for a book that I'd actually like to read, and I'm just incredibly disappointed that there was not a single thing in this book that managed to deliver. Quite honestly, the only reason I'm not giving this book 1 star is because I tend to reserve that rating for books that I think are actually harmful in some way, which I don't believe this book was. However, I think this book needed a lot more work and refinement to suit its intended audience before it was ready to be published, and I think it's a shame that it didn't get it.

This gave me SUCH Mulan vibes in the best way! What a beautiful story. This had great world building and character development. The writing is definitely YA centric which I don’t mind, but had plenty of intense situations alongside perfectly executed wit.

Such an exciting and beautiful story. Of Jade and Dragons is a Mulan retelling with a hint of steam punk and academia. Ying is a young woman seeking vengeance following her father's murder. In order to find the clues to who did it, she needs to disguise herself as her brother in order to get into the Engineer's Guild.
This book is a story of self discovery, revenge, romance and feminism. I loved the adventure and dynamics of the characters. Thank you so much to Penguin Teen, Amber Chen, and Netgalley for letting me read this book early!