Book #200 of 2025: A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #6) Another short but immersive tale of Cleric Chih on their wanderings around this East Asian-inspired fantasy land, recording local stories and trying to sift fact from legend. As usual it’s a fairly standalone adventure that doesn’t rely on readers …
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Book #10 of 2025: The Brides of High Hill by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #5) I’ll admit I was a little impatient during the first half of this latest novella in the Singing Hills fantasy series, which seemed to be setting up a fairly transparent Bluebeard plot. Our returning protagonist Cleric Chih is …
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Book #106 of 2023: Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #4) At its best, this fantasy series offers powerful meditations on stories: why we share and find meaning in them, how they don’t necessarily match an objective historical record even when purporting to, the reasons they might shift over time …
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Book #179 of 2022: Into the Riverlands by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #3) This is the first volume of the Singing Hills Cycle that hasn’t quite worked for me. We’re still following nonbinary Cleric Chih as they wander around this East Asian fantasy world recording people’s stories, learning the truth behind the lore, …
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Book #226 of 2021: The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo Overall I find this retelling of The Great Gatsby to be an improvement on the original, to which it has added some light touches of sorcery and demons. The biggest change is its queer reading of most of the cast, with Daisy, Jay, …
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Book #30 of 2021: When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #2) Not quite as powerfully moving as the previous novella, but still well above much of the fantasy genre. In this story, returning protagonist Cleric Chih is waylaid on their travels by a pack of hungry tigresses, …
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Book #17 of 2021: The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo (The Singing Hills Cycle #1) A quiet but captivating #ownvoices fantasy novella, rich in feminist character work and immersive East Asian-inspired worldbuilding. I’m always so interested in stories like this that can compel the reader’s attention despite a complete lack of traditional …
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