I have been in such a book reading slump lately and then I picked up this book! I was instantly pulled into this world and these characters. I could not put it down. Such a refreshing and interesting read!

This one was just okay.
Could have been great. (I am having the absolute worst luck with books lately.)
I feel like this book was lacking in every direction. For a book being marketed as romantasy, it felt like the romance and fantasy elements were missing. I am also a major fan of political/court intrigue and wish those parts were more fleshed out.
The characters were okay, but didn’t feel like anything special. The love interest was barely in the book and the romance was just ehhh. 🤷‍♀️

Overall, an okay adult book that reads more like a YA book.

The prettiest packages can hide the deadliest of gifts.

Xishi is reminded all too often of how beautiful she is, but being beautiful doesn’t help keep her mother and father fed or help her wash bolts of silk down at the river. If anything, being beautiful means she has to keep her guard up at all times, because in their war-torn country it would be all too easy for a soldier to capture her and no one would be any the wiser until she was long gone.

But then Fanli, the king’s minister, shows up and begs her to be of service to her country: Will she come and train to be a concubine for their enemy’s king? She need not worry about bedding him. He has plenty of other concubines; but they will teach her to be a spy and how to twist the king around her finger to do whatever she says. In return, she will covertly ensure the way can be cleared for her countrymen to invade the enemy’s lands and take over. She’s the kingdom’s fairest maiden, and only she’ll do.

Fanli should’ve recognized the inherent risks of training someone to be a spy: They learn to read you too. There’s also an inherent risk in training someone beautiful how to make men breathless: They’ll make you breathless too. Especially when they want you the way Xishi wants Fanli. They just have to make it through her assignment and watch out for the enemy king.

A Song to Drown Rivers ended up surprising me in a good way. The very beginning is a little unsteady, maybe even a little slow. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but once Xishi and company started out on their adventure the story started perking up (along with myself). I started enjoying the characters and the story more and more as it progressed. By the time Xishi and her companion are dropped off in the enemy kingdom’s capital I was fully invested and ready to go.

At heart, I see A Song to Drown Rivers as a political fantasy first and romantasy second. Most of Xishi’s inner narrative is about keeping her head and steeling her heart because there is an inherent danger with undercover and espionage work: the danger of going native, of falling in love with your mark, of growing to love your cage (these are not terms Xishi would use, of course, but no matter what time in history a story takes place in the dilemmas of war are the same). She’s there to sow division, exploit weaknesses, and to sway the king’s opinion. All of the romantic aspects of the story are a secondary element, especially in the first two acts.

It’s a great standalone read and I highly recommend it.

I was provided a copy of this title by the author and publisher via Netgalley. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.

File Under: AAPI Fiction/Fantasy/Romantasy/Folklore Retelling/Historical Fantasy/OwnVoices/Political Fantasy/Standalone

If you look at the cover of A Song to Drown Rivers, you might think it is a fantasy. In a way, it is. Though the stories have been embellished into legend status over the years, the story of Xishi and Fanli is based on historical figures. ASTDR follows Xishi, a beautiful young woman, as she is trained and given to an enemy king to seduce him and pave the way for her own people to besiege the enemy king and his land.

The nuance in this story is top tier. The deeper Xishi got into her deal, the more I wondered what she would do next. The enemy king might have been my favorite character, if only for how he was written. The theme of loyalty to one's people but realizing that both sides have done bad things and both sides think the other is the evil one plays out so well in the story and I just loved that.

The ending felt devastating, and I am impressed at how this story was contained into one book.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the e-ARC!

Thank you to Ann Liang, St. Martin's Press, and Netgalley for a free advanced reader copy of "A Song to Drown Rivers: Deluxe Edition" for an honest review. I love, love, loved this book. The writing was so rich. The lovestory was yearningly of the page. The sweeping nature of the politics. The tragedies experienced along the way. The realistic, yet heartbreaking, ending.

The only things I think could have been shored up are—more politics among the foreign court, more of the other courtesans, and more understanding (or realization of the lack of understanding) of the court in her home due to the odd angle she came into all of this with.

I was provided both an ebook and audio ARC of this book via Netgalley, all opinions are my own.

The audiobook narrator was great and really brought Xishi's story to life. Her story is an emotional one filled with sacrifice, forbidden love, espionage, and loss. The narrator does a wonderful job with the various characters and really brings the emotions forward when appropriate and masks them as Xishi would according to her training to carry out her mission.

I'm not familiar with the Legend of Xishi or the Four Beauties of China, but you bet I'll be looking into them after reading this. For me a good author inspires me to look more into what inspired the writing, and this certainly did. Our main character Xishi is very beautiful, and she has been selected to infiltrate the enemy kingdom and seduce their king and bring down the kingdom from the inside. She enters training to be his dedicated concubine and her goal is to pass information back to her people. She is all to happy to join the cause to avenge the brutal murder of her younger sister. As she spends time in the enemy court she learns much, but she never expected to gain the kings true affection and get to know him as a person.

This was a beautifully told story. It is filled with emotional moments as Xishi navigates the dangers and politics of the enemy palace and the enemy kings moods. She must carefully craft her every movement and everything she says to ensure she is portraying the loyal, faithful concubine while maintaining her double agent role. Everywhere she turns someone is plotting and she must be careful to not let something slip. She suffers great losses and must never let any emotions show.

This is my first book by Ann Liang, but it certainly won't be my last. It was such a wonderful book an it has such a beautiful cover. I highly recommend it if you enjoy historical fiction that feels a bit like a fairy tale.

I am sorry Ann Liang.....

This is not for me, the building story just didnt work for me. However thank you for the e-ARC

Big thank you to the publisher & Netgalley for the e-arc!

The concept of this book was so intriguing that I was extremely excited to read it. Unfortunately, I feel like there was a lack of connection to bring this story together. Our characters didn’t feel fleshed out and it almost felt like the first draft of the story.

I’m interested to see if the author improves, but this one sadly fell flat for me.

I wanted to love this so much but a few aspects ruined it for me. I do not enjoy Insta Love- especially not in a book that's supposed to be more fantasy-esque. I felt like I was being told about romantic tension but not actually seeing it on page. The character development felt "meh" to me.

➸ 4 stars

“The string of fate, it ensures that you are bound for eternity, that your souls will find their way back to each other in every life.”

𓍢⊹ ࣪ thank you to netgalley for the arc!

i enjoyed this book so much and i fear i will never recover from this. it was utterly devastating, tragic, and beautifully heartbreaking. i was a sobbing mess when i finished it. as much as i enjoyed this book and this reading experience, i did have a lot of things i didn’t like about it so let’s get into it!

full review is available on my goodreads!

This book had everything I love and more in a book:
historical romance
fantasy
mythology retelling
love triangles
cliffhangers

This book does have insta love so I want to warn people because I know not everyone loves that trope! But this book is addicting and intoxicating. The love triangle between Xishi, Fanli and Fuchai is so beautiful and tragic. This book is shorter than expected and does have a tragic ending but it will make you fall in love with the characters! I wish we did have more time to get to know them as characters better but I did really enjoy them all as characters. This book is going to make you fall in love with mythological retellings if you don't already!

Thank you for the ARC through Netgalley for an honest review.

This really was beautiful and engaging from start to finish. I loved the historical aspect, evocative writing, and relationship/character work. You really see the evolution of our main character and the realizations she comes to about power, war, and the ambition of men. Although listed as a fantasy this features very few fantastical elements. Save for the end, which I really enjoyed. This is a new author for me and I’m hopeful she writes more stories with this feel!

I received an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I really enjoyed this take on a historical fantasy story inspired by the legend of Xishi. It was different for sure. I enjoyed the infiltration of enemy territory aspect in the form of a woman going in to pretend to fall for the King. This story definitely had me intrigued the whole time and even though she was sent in as a spy, I felt chemistry so she did her job well. I definitely wasn’t ready for the story to end on such a cliffhanger!

Historical Romance • War Story • Fantasy
Publication Date • 1 October 2024

Thank you @stmartinspress and @macmillan.audio for the free book and audio review copies.

Memoirs of a Geisha meets Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon in this historical war story set in Ancient China, with mild fantasy elements, and a star crossed love story.

Xishi, a rural girl of unparalleled beauty, is groomed to be the trojan horse that will bring her King’s enemies to their knees. Sent in as a tribute and concubine, a pawn in a den of wolves, she’ll have to manipulate everyone around her in a game of kill or be killed, while working her way into the heart of the enemy King Fuchai.

I absolutely devoured this book. I know some others said it felt more YA; I personally did not feel that way although there is no spice. There is plenty of romance and it worked for me. By the end I was heartbroken. War is never kind to either side especially long and prolonged wars.

I read most of this one with my eyes, caressed by the poetic prose, highlighting many passages. For this reason I recommend written format, although I listened to one or two chapters on audio and didn’t find fault with the narration.

The book is also gorgeous the sprayed flower edges are so beautiful and love the cover art.

I don’t think you’ll be disappointed if you are in the headspace for a historical romance and love story. It’s a highly recommended from me.

DNF around 20% - I have a rule, a very simple rule, if the book is not making me feel all the feels, I am out. It can be love, obsession, terror, disgust, hate, anything, but a visceral reaction is required. Unfortunately, this novel was not doing that, and here we are.

There are many positive reviews for this, so don’t let me stop you from giving it a go. Not all books are for everyone, that does not mean this is not an excellent book for the right reader.

I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book was fantastically written with characters I liked and a well thought out plot. As always, I will discuss the three main components that make up a story for me: The writing, plot, and characters.

Writing style:
The book was understandably written, and I mean this in a good way. Although I am unfamiliar with what the story is based off of, I have read many retellings that fall flat and don’t give the story the depth it needs to flourish. With the writing style, you get the idea that the author has taken this take and truly fleshed it out. I really appreciate that the writing was well put out and not in a intricately complicated format that I have seen some works do.

The plot:
This story was really fun to read, you get morally grey characters, “who did this to you” vibes and (a hot love interest). Which honestly does it for me XD. Secondly, although I’ll refrain from spoiling, the ending of this book absolutely shocked me to my core and honestly I loved it. I’m all for twists in a book. (Did I predict it? Maybe a bit lol, but I loved it nonetheless.) The story kept me engaged and saying ‘just one more chapter’ at midnight so I certainly loved this novel.

Also, I’d say it’s perfect for anyone looking for a shorter read because not only is it a novel, which already has a low commitment level, but it’s short and reads very well!

The characters:
We have one main character, Xishi, (the person who has the primary POV), and two other major side characters. Fanli, the main love interest and Fuchai, who is the enemy character. I’ll mention Fuchai last because I have something interesting to note on him.

Xishi: Our beautiful, morally driven badass character who is as beautiful as she is deadly, really manages to capture the perspective of how to seduce a man. Reading her pov resonated with me because she made notes and had certain realizations about men (at least the sleezy ones, I’m not bashing men I swear, just the bad ones). Fuchai is a really interesting character study on the art of manipulating a guy into loving you and idk, I just really thought that Xishi really hit the nail on the head for how to get into a man’s mind.

Fanli: I love this man. Hands down he’s so cool. I don’t want to say much cause I’m afraid I’ll spoil but he’s as awesome as you think he is.

Fuchai: Ok, so this guy is the ‘big bad’ the one we hate, but, his character is, in my opinion, the best written. Why? Because oftentimes in book, you have evil characters, who do evil things, and we hate them. The difference here is that we see him as a person (albeit a messed up one) when he’s with Xishi. We see the side of him that loves and is kind, and we see the side that has been utterly smitten with Xishi. Now, let me clarify, this man is evil and commits morally depraved acts, and there is no excuse for such actions. What I’m saying is, is that this is the first book where I have read an evil character where it was difficult not to feel at least a bit of sympathy for him because we understand and learn of his circumstances for how he came to be. Lastly, I enjoyed how his character type was written. He was the picturesque version of a man who believes he is immortal because of his accomplishments. Because of that, he commits heinous acts, and enjoys them. Overall, Fuchai is a favorite character of mine in this book, even because of his actions.

Final thoughts: Good book, short read, I liked the retelling aspect and it’s an easy 4 star book.

Ooookkk, let me tell you how excited I was when I heard that Ann Liang is working on a Adult Historical fantasy novel based on the retelling of Xishi, one of the four beauties in China. Having been a fan of her YA works, I know I was in for a wild ride.

A Song to Drown Rivers (ASDR) does not disappoint. The writing is poetic and lyrical akin to giving you the feeling of watching a heart wrenching c-drama with a strong revenge theme, mutual pining/longing, angsty moments, the blurred lines of good vs evil and all the tropes that would exist in an amazing c-drama series. It is for the beautiful writing that makes this such a great read. And that ending, though, talks about total c-drama vibes!

With her beauty, Xishi was recruited as a spy to become the king of Kingdom Wu’s concubine, the state her kingdom was warring with. She was trained by Fanli, her kingdom’s advisor whom she eventually fell for and he for her. With the skills she amassed, she eventually enamoured the king of Wu, Fuchai leading to the destruction of the Wu Kingdom.

I feel for Xishi, on one hand, she hates the Wu with a passion and wants revenge and on the other, she cannot help but start to empathize and grow to have some feelings for Fuchai, the King of Wu, the person who was meant to seduce. Fuchai’s kind and loving treatment towards Xishi towards the bitter end made this SO ANGSTY. Although, I do wish that Xishi and Fuchai’s relationship would have been explored more emotionally. I felt like some parts were rushed and some parts were too drawn out especially in terms of her warring emotions with Fuchai and her influence on the court politics side of things.

There is minimal world building needed in a book like this given most of the story plot happened in three plot lines: the village where Xishi was borned, the cottage which denotes her training grounds and the Wu palace grounds. I would also think at times the author assumed that the world is vividly on the readers’ mind.

Now for the not so good stuff and why I deducted 1 star, Xishi - as a character is a little lacking, I find her boring and predictable at times with her emotions glossed over. On the contrary, Fuchai as a character seems way more interesting! I want to know more about him, what drives him and what makes him the person he is. My other issue with this is the romance element between Xishi and Fanli, I felt so disconnected from it since it was very glossed over at the start and there was minimal mention of him throughout the book. So, the reaction at the end was interesting…

Thank you NetGalley and St Martin Press for the arc!

→ 2 stars ☆
╰ arc review + minor spoilers.ᐟ

❝the mind destroys, the heart devours.❞

this book was a major disappointment for me :( although i don't love all of ann liang's books, she's still an auto-read author for me as i love her storytelling and so this book was one of my most anticipated releases of the year. i was intrigued by the first few chapters, pulled in by the gorgeous writing, but it went downhill after that and lacked in basically every aspect. it also felt way too short? my arc was less than 300 pages and i feel like it could have easily used another 50-100 pages to truly do the story justice. it was a very fast read though, albeit boring at times. what i hate the most is that this book had all the potential but fell short.

for a romantasy, there literally wasn't any fantasy at all except for some vauge speculative elements in the last ten or so pages (which were arguably the most well-written part of the whole book) and the romance was nonexistent. it was advertised as a slow burn...it was NOT a slow burn.

xishi and fanli's relationship was not developed at all, nor was their romance believable, especially given that fanli barely had any page time. why were they in love again? they're apart for 90% of the book. we're told over and over that they have this amazing world shattering love for each other but are never actually shown it. the entire romance was offscreen. as an example, when xishi is done with her ten weeks of training and is leaving to the palace, she's all sad missing fanli, reminiscing about their time together and all the things they did...we saw none of this. and the insta love was actually infuriating— they're little more than acquaintances imo.

and it was just generally stupid. when xishi and fanli first meet he just tells all of their plans to her and her family, who are complete strangers to him, like dude isn't that compromising your mission? 😭 and xishi just immediately agrees to leave with this guy who's she's known for all of two minutes without even checking to see if her requests regarding her parents were fulfilled because yes!! i wish her reasons for wanting to accept the mission were clearer. her desire to get revenge for her sister's murder should've been emphasized better.

she's taken to this cottage and is supposedly trained to be this super awesome spy... what training? in ten weeks, all we see her doing is learning to play an instrument and practice her expressions in the mirror (oh and did i forget to mention that fanli is apparently just the most overpowered guy to ever exist? like he can tell how long someone's been training with a sword just by looking at their hands and instantly read anyone's expressions with just the slightest change of their face... lol okay). oh and she also spys on fanli because we love insta lust, and this is probably the only actual spying she does in the entire book, btw. we are told she learnt history, geopolitics, music, court manners, poetry, etc etc etc but do you think we're actually shown any of this? hahahahahaha no. and guess what her final grand test to showcase her newfound spying skills is? something interesting, worthy of ten weeks of training? lol nope because that would require actual effort, and god forbid she struggles for anything!! all she has to do is talk to this random guy in a tea shop until his tea turns cold. how cool. she yaps for a couple of minutes and his hot tea somehow magically turns ice cold and yay, she's officially a spy!

we FINALLY get to the point of her going into the palace, and i thought it would actually get interesting here. imagine the spying! political intrigue! cool court scenes! murder! oh how naive i was. right off the bat nothing makes any sense. she's able to just casually bring a whole sword into the palace like fym they didn't check her stuff before letting her enter, esp since she's from the enemy kingdom 💀 somehow, despite training to seduce and destroy this king, she had no idea about his age, and is shocked that he's not old and graying but is actually a super hot dude around her age. like how is she meant to seduce this guy if she doesn't even know how old he is??????? ofc, the king (fanli) instantly trusts and falls in love with her, because ✨the plot!✨

xishi is a shit spy and is incredibly dumb. she literally only managed to survive in the palace due to plot armor. i can suspend disbelief to some extent because i get that she has this otherwordly beauty but STILL. the king is never suspicious of her despite her messing up constantly and literally does whatever she asks for just because. fuchai was a pretty sub-par character in desperate need of some depth, which goes for literally everyone in this story. he could have been an amazing complex morally gray character but ended up just being portrayed as drunk and lovesick. still deserved better, though.

oh, and the side characters? completely irrelevent. her friend zhengdan who goes with her as a palace maid had SO MUCH POTENTIAL. she had a strong backstory and character, but her character ended up being completely wasted and i felt nothing towards her. fanli's...sidekick guy? i forgot his name 😭 showed up a couple of times for comedic relief and wasn't relevant to the story in any way. the king's advisor could have been an amazing ruthless villian but was he? no because we love boring irrelevant characters!!

all of the interesting things in this book are done off page. show, not tell!! it's the most basic rule of writing for fucks sake!! there were also a lot of pacing issues and so many things, such as xishi's heart defect, were just mentioned a couple of times and then forgotten about.

the ending was pretty interesting, beautifully written and the only part of the book that actually inspired some emotion in me other than annoyance, but i wasn't invested in xishi and fanli enough to care much tbh.

i can go on, but i don't want to go into a full out rant so 😭 overall, i did not like this book. can you tell? what hurts the most is that this book could have been so, so good. i loved the writing and setting, hence the two stars. it definitely needed much more work in terms of character and plot development and... everything, basically. i love ann liang and think she's very talented, but i do not recommend this book.

⤿ thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review!

——・୨ ✦ ୧・——

“Just as the ocean tides ebb and flow beneath the moon, empires will rise and collapse, wars will start and cease, and the rest of us will be left to struggle against the currents.”

I think this book was tragically beautiful in more ways than that one event at the end over the course of the book and the decisions made that inevitably weren’t without their consequences.

This was an inspired story from “the legend of Xishi” and while I don’t know anything about it, I thought Liang told this in a way that it flowed seamlessly once I got settled into the story. This read more like a high historical fiction versus fantasy. Besides each character being complex in their own way; this was ultimately a story about war, kings and the division of their kingdoms, sacrifice, injustice, womanhood, and love that isn’t without its flaws but a tragedy in and of itself.

I was rooting for Xishi and enjoyed each time she outwitted others given the goal she was hellbent on achieving until I wasn’t as the story unfolded. i admired how sharp she could be when it came to it and her determination to seeing things through. I liked how, in carrying out her mission in the palace, the indecision she started to feel as things started to come to an end. somehow that gave her character more depth because she was at war with her own feelings. I just wish she had possessed certain knowledge of things given the sacrifices she made

There was a sort of love triangle going on with Fanli and Fuchai. I honestly couldn’t help but feel for the one who was initially undeserving of any love she could give him despite whatever they had being built on lies. It wasn’t until the end that I felt more for Fanli when much depth was shown given how he handled things privately. I would’ve liked to see more of that as throughout it all, I couldn’t help but feel disconnected to him considering things were more telling than showing. I just wanted more of a reason. And with Fuchai, he was terribly misguided yet in love and somehow deserved better than what he was dealt with. In the end, they were all a victim of power and the lengths men who feel threatened will go through to achieve it.

This is between 3.5-4 stars for me as I did enjoy it and it managed to evoke little emotion out of me but I did have some issues with it. Namely, the plot holes that left me with some questions (ex. the condition she had was never mentioned again) and when it came the depth that was necessary to make sense of somethings-- aside from fleshing out the development of the characters

Some quotes

“For men, it was so easy; the path to power so direct. But we had to manipulate and maneuver and claw our way to gain half of what they did.”

“The mind destroys; the heart devours”

“The village aunties had always said that my beauty would be what changed my fate. I doubted anybody had thought it would mean this.”

‘How many women throughout history were blamed for the weaknesses of men? We made such convenient scapegoats. We were raised to be small, to be silent, to take whatever we were given and no more.”

“But heroes always have tragic endings,”

“Flesh of my heart, light of my sun.”

I couldn't really get into the storyline of this book. I mean it was a great storyline, but it just wasn't for me.