Aunt Tigress is a contemporary east asian Sapphic fantasy. On it's surface it's about a girl (who is half tiger) who is trying to find out what happened after her aunt is murdered. What follows is a story about the erasure of cultures and colonization. About owning up to the part you played in tragedy, however unintentional it was. It's about complicated family dynamics and the people we chose to surround ourselves with. This is a book I'm going to be thinking about for a long time. And I can't wait to see what Emily Yu-Xaun Qin writes next.

"From debut author Emily Yu-Xuan Qin comes a snarky urban fantasy novel inspired by Chinese and First Nation mythology and bursting with wit, compelling characters, and LGBTQIA+ representation.

Readers of Seanan McGuire, Ilona Andrews, and Ben Aaronovitch will devour this gory story - and the sweet-as-Canadian-maple-syrup sapphic romance at its monstrous heart.

Tam hasn't eaten anyone in years.

She is now Mama's soft-spoken, vegan daughter - everything dangerous about her is cut out.

But when Tam's estranged Aunt Tigress is found murdered and skinned, Tam inherits an undead fox in a shoebox, and an ensemble of old enemies.

The demons, the ghosts, the gods running coffee shops by the river? Fine. The tentacled thing stalking Tam across the city? Absolutely not. And when Tam realizes the girl she's falling in love with might be yet another loose end from her past? That's just the brassy, beautiful cherry on top.

Because no matter how quietly she lives, Tam can't hide from her voracious upbringing, nor the suffering she caused. As she navigates romance, redemption, and the end of the world, she can't help but wonder...

Do monsters even deserve happy endings?

With worldbuilding inspired by Chinese folklore and the Siksiká Nation in Canada, LGBTQIA+ representation, and a sapphic romance, Aunt Tigress is at once familiar and breathtakingly innovative."

I can see the reason why this book is getting Ben Aaronovitch comparisons, which I love, but it's also so uniquely itself.

This is one of those books where I think I ultimately like the pay off more than the reading experience. Let me explain.

The Writing:
This novel has a slightly unconventional approach to storytelling from a Western perspective. It draws a lot of inspiration from its First Nations and Chinese descended characters, and I feel like a lot of that is echoed in the format. It's very common for the main storyline to be interrupted to tell the stories of the characters, but almost in a fairytale/mythology sort of way. While I ultimately do really like it and appreciate these little tangents, it wasn't something I was used to or ready for so it initially disrupted my immersion into the book.

The Characters:
I quite like the cast being assembled here and can see how they'd make for a decent core to start a new urban fantasy series. Everyone has been impacted by Aunt Tigress, no matter what walk of life they're from, and they all have incredibly different reactions to her antics.

The Reveal:
But what really made me appreciate the book and firmly lodged it in my brain is the reveal. I feel like I'll be chewing on that all week and would love to re-read the whole thing, knowing what I know now.

Art:
Also I just really need to call out that banger of a cover. Excellent, excellent work.

Content Warnings: Body Horror (Pregnancy, Birth, Trypophobia), Cruelty to Animals, Mild Gore (Descriptions of various types of injuries, dead bodies, victims of violence), Mild Homophobia

This book is one of connections between people, of stories that tangle and knot into one, larger story. It uses a mixture of first-person narrated sections from main character Tam Lin and briefer, third person sections that focus on other characters. Some may find this structure confusing or dislike how it affects the narrative flow, but I loved it. It allowed me as a reader to discover connections similarly to how Tam did, to shift perspective and gain greater understanding.

I also greatly enjoyed the mix of mythologies used in this work and how Qin used them to discuss issues of identity, cultural displacement, and cultural respect. The descriptions of creatures and locations were vivid, but also thoughtful in how they were used. For example, Qin clearly draws on the shared trauma of colonization and its effects on both Chinese and First Nations culture via the lens of Tam Lin, a second-generation Canadian immigrant of a Chinese family, but she also chooses to prioritize the First Nations’ cultural mythology and how it is fragmented, due to lingering issues from boarding schools that forced assimilation to the missing and murdered indigenous persons epidemic, because that is far more integral to the Canadian setting of the book.

The weakest part of this book is, unfortunately, the romance between Tam Lin and Janet. The romanced itself I thought was okay in terms of being part of the story, particularly view from Tam Lin’s side. It’s not “sweet as maple syrup” as was suggested, but honesty, I think that it’s more complex is a boon not a detriment. However, I found it the weakest element mostly because I hated Janet, as throughout the novel she is disrespectful, selfish, and largely… useless. However, I understand her role in the story and how her connections weave in with everyone else’s. I also think it’s okay to have a character readers may dislike, and others may disagree with me.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in mythology, dark fantasy / light horror, and okay with non-linear narratives. I was hooked from the moment The Suit showed up and remained invested up until the end. If there is a sequel, I’ll definitely pick it up.

I've got a bit of mixed feelings about this one. I loved the premise, and in some ways it delivered.

The blending and inclusion of Chinese and First Nation mythology was really interesting and I really liked all the stories included in the book. I do think they could have been placed better at times to not disrupt the flow of the story. The mythological creatures and beings were really cool to read about! I found the love interest so unlikable, and really wanted better for the MC! It is a kind of long book, but I didn't mind.

3.5 rounded up for a unique and ambitious debut, I'd read more from this author! Thank you DAW and NetGalley for the ARC!

March 18, Astra Publishing House

Old stories about tiger gods blend with urban fantasy and horror in this gorgeous mythological novel inspired by both Chinese and First Nations stories. Tam is the kind of tiger who wears a human skin. Her Aunt Tigress once treated her for an illness, and though Tam had been raised to believe she was human, Tigress’s interference gave her the ability to see the supernatural world. Now, she’s a college student, excited about her connection with free-spirited Janet and their first date together, which goes well despite being interrupted by an incubus.

But then Tam’s Aunt Tigress is murdered and skinned, and Tam inherits not only an undead fox, but also all of Aunt Tigress’s enemies. But the real danger may still be Aunt Tigress herself. While Aunt Tigress feels like an urban fantasy, both the hefty dose of horror and the length (over 400 pages) keep it from having a mass market feel. Yu-Xuan’s narrative swaps out of first person when needed, keeping the perspective close to Tam’s voice, but breaking narrative rules in a way that works remarkably well. If you scare easily, hold onto this one for sunny afternoons after it hits bookstores shelves in March.

I typically read about monstrous gay romance in a horror context, but this was a cozy hug of a book, and I adored it. The romance did actually get pushed aside in my mind, as the supporting characters captured my interest and my heart. My favorite thing about this book is not the amazing creatures, nor the starring two, but the side characters; when I think of this book, Jack, Paul, Aunt Tigress, even Raja and Mr. Rain come to mind with all of their beautiful complexities. They are some of the best developed supporting cast I have had the pleasure to read. I will say, the pacing is slow as the book really focuses on building up its side characters. I love Gothic horror, want my romances to be slow-burn, and care very much about how developed my characters are. If you agree, pick this up and enjoy!

The two factors that prevented this from being a 5 star were the world building and Janet's characterization. To be quite honest, I thought both could be a lot stronger, and I really did not like Janet. I don't even mind an unlikable female character- as I said, I read a LOT of horror- but she was so rude and snarky to everyone, all the time. I didn't feel she was developed well enough to be defensible or liked in spite of her attitude.

Huge thanks to DAW Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read this digital ARC. My review is as honest and unbiased as possible.

**Thank you NetGalley and DAW Publishing for this ARC! All thoughts and opinions are my own.**
Posted to: NetGalley and The StoryGraph (retail reviews pending release date)
Posted on: 24 February 2025

4 out of 5 stars.

Wow.
Wow wow wow- where do I even start with my review on this one? I don’t think I have the right words to even begin to share how this read made me feel… I’ll try my best-

I kind of requested Aunt Tigress on a whim after scrolling through NetGalley one day and seeing the cover. I’ve said it once and I’ll probably keep saying it- I judge books by their covers. I do! It’s an immediate eye-catcher, an attention grabber. A pretty cover doesn’t mean what’s inside will be equally as stunning though (eyeing the-book-that-shall-not-be-named that is still, unfortunately, sitting in a box waiting to be dropped off at a secondhand bookstore). That’s how I stumbled upon Aunt Tigress, however. When I was scrolling during a time I most certainly shouldn’t have been scrolling considering my backlog of ARCs that has yet to shrink, I saw this pretty cool looking cover that called me like a siren.
I’m SO glad I fell for its song.

Aunt Tigress, on the surface, is an urban fantasy with a hearty blend of myth, character, and intrigue. At its heart, it’s something so much more. In the summary alone, we know that there is a pretty vicious murder which seems to be the catalyst for everything set to happen. Tam’s Aunt Tigress is only an edge of the world within the pages though, as so much begins to unravel itself upon her death.
Something that I noticed a few others touch on is the fact that there is a lot of other stories brought into the main plot line. These other stories break up chapters or are entire chapters themselves. I personally didn’t have an issue with the break of main story into a side, usually past, story before going back to the present. My slight (and I mean very vague because the style was new and intriguing and eventually became a favorite) issue was the way tenses changed mid-writing. A majority of the novel follows Tam in the first person point of view. When more characters come into the mix though, we shift into a third person point of view that switches back to Tam’s first person pov. As I mentioned though, once I got used to this shift, it actually gave the book another layer. It made it more immersive somehow, almost playing like flashback sequences in a TV show or movie. I think that’s why I began to enjoy these flips, because it was a really new the way to introduce important information without just dumping it awkwardly into dialogues.

To shift gears from style to characters for a moment, I want to say that I also loved how we came to learn more about important people in the book. Each character, just about, received a glimpse back into their past. Again, I loved this form of storytelling because not only did we get to see and learn more about these characters, but it was also interesting the way we got to do so. There’s a reason, I’d say, for the set up of the storytelling in this, but to avoid spoilers I’ll leave that thought here.

I don’t read urban fantasy too much, but this one was such a solid pick for me. I absolutely loved the blend of Chinese and First Nation mythology, and some history that just aches as you begin to see the threads connecting events to people. It was almost a mild commentary piece, too, in that it discusses some traumas that different people/groups of people go through (like attacks on a woman/misogyny, missing persons/the fact that authorities don’t care about certain demographics, lgbt+ discrimination, and angry father-figures/toxic households to name a few). ‘Aunt Tigress’ feels like it’s something more than just another fantasy or horror novel (which I loosely classify it as horror only because there were body horror depictions that I think push it over close enough near the horror genre), but again, I just don’t have the words to express just what it feels like to me. It’s a story, it’s a lesson, it’s a social piece, it’s a memory of a read that I don’t want to forget. It may not be for everybody, but I loved it so much and I can’t wait to see more from Emily Yu-Xuan Qin!

TRIGGER/CONTENT WARNINGS:
LGBT+ hate/discrimination (from side characters in passing), misogyny (also in passing), body horror, trypophobia/mention of, gore, violence, blood, death, self-harm (to feed familiars), animal death, mentions of First Nation history (missing and/or murdered indigenous women, very very brief and not-detailed mention of school-setting trauma), cultural appropriation (by one semi-main character of different cultures but namely First Nation), (paranormal) child loss, hospitalization, minor and not-detailed sexual content

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Aunt Tigress is a wonderfully creative, strange, and compelling urban fantasy with fascinating characters, an addictive sapphic romance, and First Nation mythology galore.

Oh my goodness, this one was fantastic. From the start, I loved Tam and her relationship with Janet and the mythological creatures around her. The inclusion of mythology and magical creatures was incredibly well-written, especially the way Emily seamlessly wove them into a real-world setting. This story was darkly magical, mysterious, and haunting, and I could not have enjoyed the adventure Janet and Tam embarked on more. I loved their sweet romance and how it was threaded through and propelled by the story. The characters were interesting, and I adored the incorporation of many of the characters’ memories and stories. Aunt Tigress is a story filled with culture and stories that reminded me of the joy of reading storybooks and mythology. Emily’s prose presented the story and Tam’s character beautifully, and I enjoyed the pacing. The settings were entertaining, and the witty characters and inventive plot perfectly complemented the strange, wonderfully monstrous story.

Thank you to the publisher for the free ARC!

This was a lot of fun! I really liked how the folklores of different cultures were handled; it felt very respectful and relevant to the story. The plot is fast paced with a lot of threads coming together nicely throughout, and Aunt Tigress is an intriguing villain. I also liked how different characters' back stories were woven in as separate chapters, though other readers might find that jarring. None of the main characters particularly stood out to me (and some readers might find Tam a bit too much of a sad sack as a main character), but it didn't affect my enjoyment of the story, especially there are some very fun side characters.

Interesting premise but poor execution...

The main character is flat. The world system is not thorough... The writing style is poor.

I tried to give the second chance to the book but unfortunately dropped it at 14% dnfing

OH MY GOSH. This was so much fun!! The writing was beautiful and captivating and it sucked me in almost immediately. I swear only a few pages in. I am a big fan of Kate Daniels series by Ilona Andrews, and this gave me threads and snippets of it. Like the world-building, the magic system, was all very exciting to learn about and see develop in the pages. The characters were the best too. I found myself so enamoured with each of them and loved the story/myth parts that were sprinkled in the chapters. So good. I have no bad thoughts. Also, the final lil twist at the end was brilliantly done. All the stars for this one.

Many thanks to the publishers and netgalley for supplying me with an arc in exchange for my thoughts.

Aunt Tigress
by Emily Yu-Xuan Qin
Urban Fantasy
NetGalley eARC
Pub Date: Mar 18, 2025
DAW
Ages: 17+

Demons, ghosts, and gods live among humans who cannot see them, but some know they are there. Tam's father was able to shapeshift into a tiger, but after his death, Tam finds 'family' in his sister, but when she is found murdered and skinned, Tam inherits her Aunt's possessions.

Cleaning out her aunt's trailer, Tam's memories come back to the reasons why she cut the threat tying her to her aunt, and those people she hurt under her aunt's teachings are pieces to solve her aunt's murder.


While the blurb sounded like this story would be a mystery with some horror aspects, it flopped.

The idea, plot, and storyline had promise, but the execution failed.

First, the MC was blah. Yeah, I get she suffered some trauma, but she didn't have much of a personality, and her love interest, that girl was overly friendly but also degrading plus bordering on aggressiveness. And in regards to the other characters, I didn't care much for any of them.

The world, I have no idea if all of the 'humans' know about the supernatural and; don't care or just ignore it because they can't see it. (Seeing is believing) Or if most of them have no clue. This world, like the characters, wasn't built up enough to explain this.

Then there were the overly flowery rambling descriptions of clothes and other things as if making up for the Telling of 'tales and folklore' that retained to the present situation, interrupting in mid-action, thus throwing the reader right out of the story. This also happened with the characters' backstories, giving me no reason to care for them.

I told myself at 6% to DNF, but because of where I was, it was read or do nothing, so I pushed through. Lesson learned to be prepared!

But I can say that, in my opinion, this book would have worked better as short stories; first telling the folklore/minor characters' stories in separate stories, then have the last story be Tam's story, bringing all of the others together. Doing it that way, I believe, would have allowed the author a better opportunity to treat each 'story' with the same 'love' and details they deserve, thus showing the story instead of telling it.

1 Star

This was unfortunately a no from me. The insta-romance between Tam and Janet wasn't convincing, in part because both characters felt like caricatures -- Tam's main trait was being scared and Janet was rude and pushy. I'm not sure how someone you barely know barging into your house, eating your food unannounced, and being blatantly rude to your mom AND THEN NOT CLEANING UP YOUR DISHES is anything but a turn-off, even considering the complex relationship between Tam and her mom. I liked the melding of First Nations and Chinese mythology in theory, but the infodumps and jarring flashbacks slowed down the story significantly without actually providing much context. It's difficult to write unlikeable characters that the reader still wants to read about, and that wasn't accomplished here -- I just didn't want to spend any more time with them than I had to (especially Aunt Tigress, which is saying something considering how much I usually love prickly old women whose goals outweigh caring for others), let alone 450ish pages.

Original worldbuilding that shows deep respect for both Chinese and First Nations tradition and folklore, ties together with the question of how far we might go for blood family over a chosen one. The main character does get outshined by several supporting characters along the way.

Sadly, I'll be DNFing this one about 10% in. I simply can't stand the writing style, and I don't care enough about the characters or the plot to push through. Still, I'm hoping that people who are genuinely interested in this book will give it a try!

Huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read this book in exchange for an honest review!

I wanted so so badly to love this but between long, meandering paragraphs and frequent jumps to flashbacks that don’t seem entirely relevant in context (they usually become relevant just later enough that the details get a little fuzzy in your brain), it lacked tension and pacing. Some of Tam’s anecdotes seem to contradict each other, which made the overall timeline very confusing for me. It got to the point where any time I thought I had a grasp on the bigger picture, it felt like the author would then throw sand in my eyes and when my vision cleared, I was looking at something else entirely.

The concept is awesome and the characters were very interesting, but the act of reading was a bit of a slog

When Tam was young, Aunt Tigress cured her of illness—an act which, against her mother’s wishes, brought Tam into a world of magic and folklore. From then on, Tam’s life was marked by her run-ins with mythical creatures. As much as she tries to put it all (including some tragic and affecting incidents in her youth) behind her so that she can focus on college and taking care of her mom and the hot girl Janet she’s been seeing, the mark that her no-good child-stealing witch-aunt Tigress left on her life is unmistakable. When Aunt Tigress is killed, Tam is forcefully pulled into danger and into a world she’s been told to resist. Emily Yu-Xuan Qin’s novel feels full and tactile—its characters are messy, harsh, and human, its world bloody and rich with sensory detail. And look, you don’t just name your characters Tam Lin and Janet with no thought behind it, okay? We’re going deep in on folklore here. This is the author’s debut, and I cannot wait to see what they do next.

This book was weird. So weird that at a few places, I had to put it down for a bit to process. But it was so interesting I kept picking it right back up again! The combination of bits of Chinese and Canadian First Nations folklore was refreshing. The main character annoyed me enough at times that I wanted to shake her, but still I kept coming back to this book to see what happened next. I'd love to read something else set in the same universe.

Aunt Tigress by Emily Yu-Xuan Qin is an interesting urban fantasy set in Canada that takes inspiration from both Chinese and First Nations mythology. I really loved the dreary Calgary winter setting, and liked how the mythical interacted with the mundane. Overall a 2.5 rounding up to 3. Thank you to Netgalley, Emily Yu-Xuan Qin, and DAW for the ARC.