This was a beautiful story. I loved the mix of historical fiction, magical realism, and the focus on storytelling. Rating 4 stars because I struggled to root for Monica and Louise, the end felt rushed and I needed a bigger redemption arc.

Thank you to William Morrow and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this advance copy.

The Phoenix Pencil Company spans generations of a Chinese family with a magical secret, That of extracting stories from the pencils that were made in China at the factory. The story takes you through China during 2 wars, going up to the present day. Monica wants to reunite her grandmother Yun with her grandmother's cousin Meng, who lives in China. It makes us question if our personal series will be lost in the future, or who will tell them .
I enjoyed this book and was pleasantly surprised as it was not my usual genre. thank you net galley for the opportunity to read it.

You have 32 great-great-great-grandparents. And some of them were probably very brave. Some were very smart, and some were very good people. Over time, their stories have been lost, likely you do not know any of their stories specifically. If you have done 23 and me, you likely know where they were born and grew up. For most people on earth today, you live in a different country than your great-great-great grandparents did. And so much of our experience, our connections, are wildly different than theirs. And yet, much is the same.

Monica's family's legacy is the Phoenix Pencil company, a manufacturer of pencil in Shanghai. As her grandmother Yun is facing her final days, Monica wants to reconcile her relationship with her cousin Meng. She survived the Chinese civil war (I did have to look up "Chinese civil war" on wikipedia quickly for context) and came to California, leaving her beloved cousin behind. Soon Monica discovers that the pencils are not just pencils but carry the stories within them. And what is a Phoenix but a magical creature that burns and is born from its own ashes.

Highly lyrical and descriptive, The Phoenix Pencil Company is a debut novel that spans generations and continents. The characters change and grow, and there is also a tangential love story that (to me) kind of sprang up out of nowhere. The plot, while simplistic, was hopeful and original. True to the culture and timeline, the story echoes the question, "who owns your story and who will tell it?"

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the ARC. Book to be published June 3, 2025.

Thanks to NetGalley for the opportunity to read 'The Phoenix Pencil Company, a well done, refreshing and engaging story.

I really enjoyed this story which had a magic system unlike any I have seen before. The story goes back and forth between two young cousins in war time Shanghai and one of those girls, now a grandmother, and her granddaughter in present day. I enjoyed not only the magical aspect of the story and the relationship between grandparents and granddaughter, but also the historical part as well.
The story is well written and a very enjoyable read. I would highly recommend this book.

The Phoenix Pencil Company started out very slowly for me. I grew to like it more and more the further I read, and as the tension built. Ms. King writes complex characters, and I found the relationship between the grandparents and the granddaughter very endearing. The relationship between Monica and Louise was a great slow-building relationship between two women who were very unsure of themselves and each other in this aspect of their lives. I loved how it developed. The magic portrayed in this book is a unique type - I haven't seen it before. It is a blood magic, still with potential to corrupt, but potential to be lifechanging. What was made very clear was the huge toll it took on the practitioner. The way Ms. King intertwined it with giving us glimpses into Chinese culture, especially the culture of those forced to flee China, was entrancing. I recommend this book to anyone who loves plots with twists and turns, history interwoven, and stories where main characters truly find themselves. It was a great read!

I was hooked on this book right away. Great story alternating between time periods as we learn the grandmothers back story. The writing was wonderful. I don’t usually go for stories with a magical element, this was a pleasant surprise. Highly recommend.

Fascinating and heart aching! I really enjoyed the premise and felt deeply for the characters. Incredibly unique--thank you for the ARC!

I was drawn to this title by the premise and description, but ultimately it wasn't a great match for me. I love a good magical realism story, and I also tend to love a multigenerational, multiple POV narrative. Unfortunately, this one felt a little clunky and with too many side threads that didn't seem to go anywhere.

This book grabbed me, held onto me, and I rode this story to the very end! I literally read this in one setting. The story is of two girls living in Shanghai during World War II and how their lives were reshaped by the pencil company their mom‘s ran. Although they were excellent quality, pencils, they also had a little magic. This book kept me turning the pages, and I will be pushing this book into the hands of friends. Thank you for allowing me to read this book as a galley. NetGalley and William Marrow. Stunning work.

It's big words to compare this to Ruth Ozeki's books, but I feel it's justified. Big emotions, big focus on the importance of stories (a person's story and also, to a lesser extent here, the stories we make up). It's an example of a book that uses the "jump between past and present" gimmick really well. It flowed beautifully.

There was an issue with Chinese characters not showing up, which may have been an issue with the fact it's not the finished proof or maybe just my Kindle not being properly up to date, but it did trip me up a few times (not enough to ruin the experience at all, it's not like I could've read them even if they were visible)

A unique blend of history, memory, technology, and magical realism, The Phoenix Pencil Company is a debut that examines the power of storytelling and who gets to own, share, and reshape our personal narratives.

The novel follows Monica Tsai, a college freshman and computer programmer, who spends her days working on an app designed to connect strangers online. While she struggles to form real-life friendships, she finds solace in journaling and caring for her aging grandparents—especially her beloved grandmother, Yun, whose memory is beginning to fade. But via the app she is designing, Monica soon discovers that her family’s history is far richer and more complicated than she ever imagined.

Alternating between Monica in 2018 and Grandmother Yun’s past in Japanese-occupied Shanghai, the novel unveils a hidden legacy of espionage, resistance, and a mysterious family gift. As Yun and her cousin Meng work at the Phoenix Pencil Company, they uncover an extraordinary ability. In the present, Monica stumbles upon a single pencil that leads her to a long-lost relative, sparking a journey to unearth the truths buried in her family’s past. As she sifts through decades of untold stories, she must reckon with the role of memory, privacy, and digital footprints in shaping the present and future.

Inspired by King’s own family history, The Phoenix Pencil Company is a thought-provoking novel that celebrates the resilience of generations and the enduring power of words and personal narratives.
#ThePhoenixPencilCompany #AllisonKing #HistoricalFiction #MagicalRealism #FoundFamily #NetGalley #WilliamMorrow

While the premise was nice, the writing was... not what I expected. I wanted more from the characters because I felt that what was on the front cover and the front flap was not what we were given.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for sending me an ARC of this novel.
Gosh, it was different! Just a bit too much fantasy to say that I really liked it. But it was well written.
I enjoyed learning about the history of Shanghai and Taiwan during WW2.
Some of my favorite lines:
“I wanted the works to know I belonged somewhere, to know my place in history so I could navigate a path through the chaos of the world we live in.”
“If our stories will be lost, then the only thing that really matters is the people in our lives, and how we treat them in this moment in time.”
“Pencils and technology—could they really be a substitute for human connection?”

Charming in the way of The Book Eaters or The Cartographers, this contemporary fantasy follows Monica, a college student set on finding out more about her family's history. This debut novel by Allison King is a heartwarming tale of magic, family, and a touch of graphite, and the perfect summer read!

Thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for the opportunity to read The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King, an engaging, magical story.

Rating: 3.75⭐️

The Phoenix Pencil Company is a dual perspective story that goes back and forth between the present-day story of a college student named Monica, who has always been very interested in computers and coding and is raised by her grandparents, and the story of her grandma, Yun, growing up in Shanghai during World War 2. I will say my favorite part of this story is the historical fiction part of the story. Yun’s story is mainly about her relationship with her cousin, Meng, who she grows up with and ends up being separated from. Yun talks about their experience of growing up in Shanghai during WW2, her family’s pencil company, and the magic the pencils hold for their family. I found Yun’s story heartbreaking and beautiful. In the present-day story, Monica helps connect Yun with her long-lost cousin and ends up making her own connection. The present-day story was not as strong for me and I was excited about the sapphic romance, but I ended up months being invested in it. But I did enjoy Monica’s relationship with her grandparents. The most beautiful aspect of this book was the family relationships, specifically Yun and her cousin Meng.

4 stars...first off thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this eARC. I quite enjoyed this novel. The plot line was original and you just fell in love with all the characters. Yeah, sometimes you wanted to slap some of them upside the head but still very lovable. Loved the dual POV between the grandmother and the granddaughter. This story was was both heart breaking and heart warming with themes of love, loss, grief, war time, magic, reconnecting with family. All in all it was a beautiful story and I would definitely recommend it to people who enjoy a good book

This is a clever and engaging story of culture and magic. I was grateful I had read Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking as it gave me cultural backstory on the treatment of Chinese people at the hands of the Japanese. The story unspools the relationship of a Chinese American girl and her grandmother’s life in Shang.hai and Taiwan. The magic came as a surprise. The sexual element of magic was an unnecessary flourish. There is woman+woman romance if only in the first nascent steps. I very much enjoyed the work and would seek out this author in the future.

DNF- 70%
First of all, I don't know what description of the book I read, but I expected more magic and I didn't know there would be any historical fiction, which I'm not really a fan of. Also, I am not a fan of any romance that is not clean, so be aware that this may just be me.

I liked this book for the first 50% or so, but there was a spice scene in chapter 20 and then a really gross romance discussion/flirting thing in chapter 26 that made me quit. I enjoyed the magical realism part, but not really the other parts.

This book is a blend of historical fiction, romance, and magical realism. The romance takes a bit to build-up but it is definitely there later on (in both timelines). Each chapter alternates between present day (really 2018) and the 1930s-1950s ish. The present day follows Monica and the historical part follows her grandmother, Wong Yun. Monica's chapters are about a coding project she is working on, EMBRS and Yun's is about her time growing up in China. Yun talks about her life during multiple wars and her cousin Meng, who she got separated from after the first of the two wars.