4 stars! i've loved ann's writing since IYCSTS, so when i heard she was writing an adult historical fiction novel, i was ELATEDDD. a few caveats brought this book to a 4 stars instead of a 5, but i still HIGHLY recommend this book nonetheless!

plot:
the premise of the book revolves around Xishi, one of the four legendary beauties of ancient China, whose ethereal, larger-than-life presence is both a blessing and a curse. she lives in a small village within the kingdom of Yue essentially ruled by a puppet king, which is under occupation (as a tributary state) to the ruthless kingdom of Wu. Xishi is recruited by the Yue military advisor Fanli for her beauty, who plots to overturn the Wu government from within by sending her to seduce their king. a mission that is long and arduous and lonely, but may very well save Yue, Xishi must remain faithful to her motives, her heart, and her duty to her people.

themes -
- womanhood: i literally could not emphasize how impactful and relatable and TRUE ann's/xishi's monologues on how women are objectified and taken advantage of are. what is so special about how this is written is how Xishi finds every occasion to rise above it. as she'll prove using her connections in the palace, the 'we do what we must to survive' message really resonated and drove this theme home.
- power/war: without spoilers, it's a bit diff to talk about this point. but in the subtlest of ways, ann finds a way to take this theme and bring it on the offensive, with Xishi questioning it, where her loyalties lie, and whether they ought to be there. how it ruins and corrupts people, yet shifts the repercussions to those who are without power. i loved the twist with the realization Xishi had toward the end on this.

romance -
on xishifanli: these slow-burns are usually my favorite, but for them I would have preferred a little more burn, a little less slow. i love small doses of romance in plot-heavy books, but i just felt like xishifanli never truly reached a climax, and so a lot of their "memorable" interactions were lost on me.
on xishifuchai: i didn't exactly buy it. sure, insta-love is viable with Xishi being beautiful, but she did very little to have gained his trust in the beginning, and the least she did was make him remember her. lots of telling about their relationship occurs, so all i can really boil this down to is it feels like infatuation for him and guilty attachment for her. more on his character later because we really only get to see him through the lens of her "romance" with him.

characters -
Xishi: the girl is unnaturally, painstakingly beautiful, and she knows it. we never really get to see her character grow, because i believe that courage she displayed beginning to end was lit always there. natured, didn't nurture. but i loved her as a whole and especially towards the end, when her reflection and all of the messy and complicated relationships she has established throughout the book culminate in the climax. she is strong and brave and SUCHH an inspiration.
Fanli: LOVESSSS. i could go on about him but you'll have to read for yourself how much he makes this book worth reading. the end DEVASTATED me as did probably every reader, but watching him shed that facade was truly the closest thing to growth i've seen from a character described one-sidedly from a diff POV. i do think he lacked a lot of presence in the latter half of the book though, something that made their romance harder to buy imo. (i need to know more of the fluff that happened during the training or else i will dieee)
Fuchai: he forever lived in his father's shadow, and as much as he revered him, it constantly incentivized him to find a way out. Xishi was that way out; literally an escape from his birthright-- anything that took him out of the life he was born into he would have clung onto. though i did want to sympathize for him later in his run, it was a little bit hard to look past his homicidal tendencies... on several accounts Xishi fears his ignorance, or that he might become dangerous to others, and has to deter him. like whaaaaat. but i think at the same time he also personified some very real and very haunted rulers in history, which only made the book ring ever-true.

overall, ann doesn't disappoint with any of her novels, and as critical as this review might be, it's definitely worth your read and will teach you some really important and valuable lessons. thank you to netgalley for the opportunity to read this arc 🫶

This is a beautifully crafted historical fiction story about a woman who risks everything, and ultimately delivers vengeance in the name of love.

At the heart of the story is Xishi, a young woman of "unmatched beauty." She has been asked by her kingdom and King Goujian, to seduce their enemy, King Fuchai. With insight into the palace, the belief is then the powerful Wu soldiers can be defeated. It's a dangerous plan that could easily backfire, but Xishi bravely takes on the task.

While this plan has lots of factors that need to go just right, feelings for the parties involved isn't supposed to be on the table. First, there is Fanli, advisor to King Goujian, who selects and prepares Xishi for the mission. It was very clear early on that they two had a connection, even before they admitted it to one another. So you can imagine the heartbreak when the two must put their feelings aside and move forward with the plan, seducing another man.

The second instance of feelings involves King Fuchai. While he represents the enemy, he is not the brute I or Xishi expected. As she wears him down, the two also form a connection, which I didn't believe was all fake on her part.

There are two turning points in this book that broke my heart. I can't provide any details but it was a one-two gut punch. However, the author manages to create some beauty in it by the end. One that mended my heart, at least somewhat.

Overall, this was an engaging story, with well developed characters. An emotional rollercoaster, of sacrifice and love that captivated me. One worth checking out!

What can I say, other than A Song to Drown Rivers was absolutely tragic and oh so beautiful.

Without giving away any spoilers, my thoughts:

Fuchai’s story ultimately broke my heart. Then Xishi and Fanli - just ugh - the injustice of war, and ultimately fear, is truly cruel.

I couldn’t stop listening. I have not been this invested in two characters in quite some time. The writing was *chefs kiss*

Wow! Just, read it!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

I absolutely loved every previous book I've read from Ann Liang. The way she writes, even "rom-coms" is amazing. But this fed my fantasy book obsession! From the first chapter, I knew I'd be OBSESSED with this book! This book was sacrifice, love, tragedy, and heartbreak in one beautiful story. I loved every moment of it. This book is perfection!!

Thank you NetGalley, Ann Liang, St. Martins's Press, AND Macmillan Audio for granting me access to this book and the audiobook in exchange for an honest review. Natalie Naudus' narration was sheer perfection, enchanting my love for the story even more. Her performance breathed life into the characters, making the experience so vivid and real.

What an emotionally mesmerizing, tragically heartbreaking, and utterly addictive historical fantasy, exquisitely written with stunning prose. This epic narrative intricately weaves mythology and romance, unfolding a captivating tale of womanhood, war, sacrifice, and love that defies all odds. Devastatingly beautiful and unforgettable! I wholeheartedly recommend this novel and cannot wait to add this gorgeous book to my physical collection. Additionally, I can confidently declare that this book has secured its place among my top favorites for the year 2024!!! 💙💙💙💙💙💫💫💫💫💫

Thank you to NetGalley, publisher St. Martin's Press, and author Ann Liang for providing an eARC for review. My thoughts and opinions are my own.
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Do you remember that "Lie down, try not to cry, cry a lot" meme from like, 10 years ago? That's this book. It is painfully beautiful and painfully tragic.

While marketed as adult fiction, this reads a little YA in a good way. The prose is easy to follow (I read half the book in one day) and the writing style is plain but pretty. The author didn't take any circuitous routes to say what she wanted to say, there are no complex metaphors or five-dollar words, the author didn't ingest a thesaurus and regurgitate it for the sake of sounding profound.

I came into the story completely unaware of the legend of Xishi, so I didn't really know what to expect other than a few key things: she's a great beauty, she's a she, and she's in ancient China. From these three facts, I knew this story would not end with a happily ever after; young women in ancient Chinese legends seldom get such a prize. Xishi is aware of this herself:

"But girls like me sometimes went missing. Though missing was too soft a word for it. The truth was uglier: stolen, slaughtered, sold. Traded between men like rare porcelains."

Xishi works, over the course of the story, to transform herself from a silk-washing peasant girl to a desirable courtesan, and uses her appearance as a weapon. The author demonstrates Xishi is not just a great beauty, but a sharp, intelligent woman with goals and dreams. She's strategic and clever, and makes split-second decisions to manipulate those around her into doing what she wants while letting them think it's their own idea (very Inception-like). At times this feels like it comes almost too easy to her: how can she be pretty and smart and clever and a great conversationalist and manipulator and good at dancing and singing and embroidery and and and and... but that is when it is important to remember this is a legend, and aren't the subjects of all legends exaggerated to superhuman levels? Some of the plot points seem to resolve a little too tidily, but, again, this is a retelling of a legend, and fate often works to nudge cosmic pieces into place just so, to create the right environment for the heroine to be victorious.

Ultimately, A Song to Drown Rivers was heartbreaking, inspiring, forlorn, resolute, and hopeful. This is one that is sure to leave the reader with a book-hangover.

An amazing debut into fantasy.
To sum up this in three words: heartwarming to heartbreaking. This book kept my attention when I was and wasn't reading. The pacing never dragged. In true Ann Liang fashion, this was incredibly romantic while feeding me literal crumbs!!
I finished this book a few days ago and I'm still thinking of that ending.

WOW. WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW, WOW. I haven't been brutally injured by a book in a long time. I was in tears for the last few chapters. I didn't realize how attached to these characters I had gotten, and then BAM, I was crying. I got so invested about 1/3 of the way in that I finished the rest in a day because I HAD to know what happened to these characters and in this world.

So worth the read and probably my favorite book of the year so far! Absolutely pick this one up if you have the chance!

Thanks to St. Martin's Press for the ARC!

A SONG TO DROWN RIVERS is inspired by the legend of Xishi, one of the famous Four Beauties of Ancient China. She draws the attention of a military advisor named Fanli and is presented with an opportunity to use her beauty as a weapon to topple the rival neighboring kingdom of Wu, improve the lives of her people, and avenge her sister's murder.

Boy do I love a story with some good strong heroines, female rage, and revenge. Xishi's character is phenomenal and while her outside beauty is unmatched, it's her inward strength and determination that really shine through in this story. I loved the romance, betrayal, sacrifice, blurred lines, and politics. The ending really drove the whole story home to make this an incredibly powerful story.

An absolutely stunningly beautiful story that had me crying rivers at the end. What a masterpiece of a book.

>> FYI -- Preorder now and receive the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION while supplies last―featuring a gold foiled cover, gorgeous sprayed edges with stenciled artwork, as well as exclusive metallic ink patterned end-papers and unique foiled front and back case stamps. ((IT’S G-DANG GORGEOUS!))

♡ "All of Yue will remember you; I swear it."

This beautifully, dark retelling of a Chinese folktale is told in first person POV through Xishi, our 20 year-old main lady. Setting is Old World, an alternate China, about said ancient tale -- "Xi Shi, Wang Zhaojun, Diao Chan and Yang Guifei are known as the 'Four Beauties in Ancient China', among which Xi Shi is the first." -- It had some Mulan vibes too, to this Western reader. There are extremely early hints of romance, and I'm honestly not sure where Xishi's automatic obsession comes from, except maybe that he saved her life upon their first meeting? Or maybe it's a reincarnation thing, since there is a possible, and super subtle, hint? I wanted more of an explanation and acknowledgment though. Even though this instant love infatuation was a tad annoying, I found the novel to be very well written; pretty visuals, tasty lines and similes. Mostly a decent flow but a few head tilting moments. Time isn't handled properly (ex: 85% in/chapter 22, it's been two years?? Uh, okay?) I also would have preferred more development or time with the other concubines. And what was with the chest pain? With the abundance in which it was referenced, I expected it be something, unless I missed it or needed to know the original lore. Which would be disappointing, if that's true. I enjoyed the very dark and tragic, unexpected ending.

♥ Bonus points: Chang'e reference!!!!

A Song To Drown Rivers was my second Ann Liang book, following This Time It's Real, and it did not disappoint! I love an arranged marriage/marriage of convenience story, and A Song To Drown Rivers hit that mark exactly. It also had an angsty slow-burn forbidden romance, I honestly think the BookTok girlies will eat this one up.

2.05!

I WAS VERY GENEROUS WITH THIS RATING

Everyone has been raving about Ann Liang's YA rom-coms so I had to see what the hype was about and I had gotten an arc of her new adult fantasy book on netgalley. So I thought why not really this first and to say I'm disappointed would be an understatement because this book was so lacking in almost every aspect. It could have done so much better but it failed to read that potential it was also very short? My arc was about 280 pages with 15 pages being additional stuff. I did enjoy it and that's why I'm giving it two stars, the writing was the better part and I had enjoyed reading it during the second half where I quite literally flew through it but I could not negate the wasted potential.

It could have been such a beautiful tragic novel, if it was done and this unfortunately was not done right. The fantasy elements were missing from this novel, they were so minute and not well explored. For a romantasy the romance felt missing too. The world building was lackluster and the action was barely there. The political/court intrigued could've been more drawn out more explored but that wasn't the case here either. The book fluctuated a lot sometimes it would be so slow and the other times it would be extremely fast and it was very off putting. The way it was written maybe fun and enjoyable but it lacks so many things that would make it actually good.

The characters were so mid and wasted 😭. Our love interest was present only for 25% of the book so we barely, barely got any content from his side or any development from his side both romantically and for his character. Zhengdan and Fuchais characters were wasted. I won't say why Zhengdan's was but Fuchai's character, he deserved so much better!!and his character could've been more flawed and more morally grey but he quite literally was a drunken fool 😭 Xishi our main character managed to do the bare minimum, seduce a drunken fool 😍👏🏻 that's it. That's what the 13 weeks worth of training taught her. The character development was simply non existent. They were just there and they moved around and the sorry finished..the ending was very disappointing as well. I couldn't feel anything because I wasn't that attached to the character but I was shocked by it and not really impressed tbh. Zixu was the only character who ate 😭😭 that one line where he says at the end 😭🔪 HE DEVOURED 😭😭

The romance was so disappointing. It was so rushed because the FMC and the MMC catch feeling like 20% in and the then 5% later the FMC leaves and then they meet twice during this whole fiasco and those moments were also brief. We got more of her scenes with Fuchais than the Fanli and it was so disappointing because when a book does not deliver on fantasy you expect the romance to overshadow it and this failed as well. The quotes were nice but the romance simply was not also that one scene where she says Fanlis name 😭😭 THE SECOND HAND EMBARRASSMENT 😭🤡

Also for an adult book there was nothing adult of sort, it read like a YA novel.

Overall, a subpar novel which could have exploited more of its potential 😔

˖ ⋆ ˚𓆝 ˖ ｡ ⋆ 𓈒 𓆟 ˖ ⋆˚°𓆞 ˚ ｡ ⋆

This book is one of my most highly anticipated books and it's also my first Ann Liang book so I am so excited to read this!!! Got the arc back in Feb and I feel like this is the perfect time to read this<33

*Thank you to Netgalley for giving me an E-arc*

I am choosing not to review this book at this time, as I have decided to purchase the gorgeous sprayed edge copy and I will review when I receive it 🩷

Many thanks to St. Martin's Press for the eARC, Macmillan Audio for the ALC, and to author Ann Liang and narrator Natalie Naudus for their incredible talents. This review reflects my honest thoughts and opinions.
Publication Date: October 1, 2024

5 STARS

The fmc is forced into a political arranged marriage with the “horrible” king of the Wu Kingdom. In truth, she is infiltrating the enemy kingdom as a spy. One woman becomes the hero of her nation, not with a sword but with her survival instincts in a palatial prison and a life she did not choose.

This is lyrical, elegant historical fiction. There’s no magic. The only reason it might be shelved as fantasy is because it’s mythology retelling.

Reasons I Loved the Book:
1. THE AUDIOBOOK: No complaints regarding sound production and quality. Also, Natalie Naudus is an expert narrator of whom I’ve long been a fan. Her performance is versatile and natural, not overly dramatic and she uses subtle voice changes to cue different characters. She articulates the words clearly; I was easily able to listen at 2.5-3x speed and not miss a thing.
2. THE WRITING: The prose style falls in between simplistic workman’s style and purple/embellished prose. The flow is smooth and readable. Imagery is present and enhances the setting and vibes of the book but is not overly detailed.
3. THE ROMANCE: ohhhh my heart💗 This book has such a pure, slow burn love. The mutual longing is so beautifully angsty! You also get the forbidden trope—because the fmc and her trainer/spy handler indicate mutual attraction early on, even though she’s about to enter an arranged marriage with high stakes in a dangerous environment. They love each other more than anything else yet do their best to be honorable.

The story is deceptively simple. It is devastatingly beautiful.

I 100% recommend this title as one of my favorite reads of 2024.

I’m not crying, you’re crying.

A Song to Drown Rivers is beautifully and lyrically written, with extremely well developed characters. Everyone is more than they seem - more than a beauty, more than a vicious king, more than a ruthless minister of war. The complexity of the characters brought this story to life and elevated its themes of sacrifice, revenge, love, and loss. I was pulled in from the start and could not put it down. The ending was bittersweet, breaking my heart into a thousand pieces. If you love historical fantasy and are looking for your next good cry, this book has you covered.

Thank you to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

Xishi’s Beauty is undeniable, an opportunity arises in which she can use it as a weapon against an enemy clan. Fanli, the kings military advisor is responsible for honing her beauty into the weapon and placing her as a spy in the palace to seduce the king from within. She could be the villages redemption or be discovered ensuring war and her people’s demise.

A Song to Drown Rivers is a beautifully written tale of love, revenge, and deceit. Xishi’s character shows that beauty is not her only weapon and her cleverness provides her with the opportunity to get revenge for her murdered sister. Despite there being a love interest and Xishi being made the kings concubine, this tale was very romantically wholesome and there was little more than kissing throughout. A very enjoyable read that I would definitely recommend…A must read for 2024!

Thank you to NetGalley for the early copy of this book! I did some brief research of the four beauties of China when I picked this book up and immediately was intrigued. This story follows Xishi as she is chosen for her unmatched beauty to become a concubine for the king of the Wu kingdom, the very kingdom that killed her younger sister. Trained to seduce and spy on the king, Xishi spends years living at the palace giving the king just enough to fall for her as the Yue kingdom prepares to invade.

I really enjoyed this book! While based on legend, this book had all the elements I love: bad ass female main characters, deceit and infiltration of an organization, forbidden love. It also fell in line with my recent desire to read ancient history and mythology books. I highly recommend this book!

I'll make this short and sweet: this book was a delight! I don't read much fantasy, but I really enjoyed A Song to Drown Rivers. The writing is as lovely as the cover, and the story flowed really well. Glad to have had the opportunity to read and review this title through NetGalley, as I had not been aware of Ann Liang before--I'm looking forward to reading more of her work.

An absolutely beautiful book with devastatingly achy moments. I forgot that it was based off of folklore and if you are wanting a happy ending, this isn’t it. And if you know the legend, then you know this. I did not. I cursed this book at the end. I should have known, but the writing was subpar and lyrical. I enjoyed so many lines.