Unfortunately, I don’t have too much to say about the second book in this Asian-inspired novella series. Though it features the same central character (a cleric named Chih who travels the empire of Ahn looking for stories to collect and tell), it was very different from the first book, The Empress of Salt and Fortune. Like the first book, the setting is full of lavish fantasy world-building that Vo manages to subtly slip in throughout her descriptions. But while the first book told the story of a royal consort whose machinations led her to become the empress, this book offered the somewhat off-kilter story of a tiger who fell in love with a scholar. The storytelling aspects were not bad, as it felt even more like a fable than the previous book, but I just did not enjoy or really buy that central relationship.

Chih is being transported to their destination by a scout from the mammoth corps when, along the way, they are accosted by a trio of tigers. These tigers are far from friendly, and rather ravenous, but in a nod to One Thousand and One Nights, they are lulled into not eating Chih so long as Chih continues telling the story of the legendary tiger warrior, Ho Thi Thao (whom the tigers claim as an ancestor), and the beautiful scholar named Dieu.

This book was challenging because not a lot is made obvious or explained, and in a fantasy setting where anything can be true, that’s especially confusing. As I was reading the first time (yes, I had to read it multiple times — again), I didn’t quite follow that Ho Thi Thao, who was described as flirting with Dieu, was a tiger (y’know, because tigers don’t normally flirt with humans!). Eventually the story became easier to grasp, and yet I still couldn’t really embrace this relationship because it didn’t make a lot of sense. Some elements reminded me of Beauty and the Beast, and I could also see the idea of a dangerous captor and their captive finding a kind of Stockholm-syndrome-style affection, but the actual story didn’t quite bring any of that out to my satisfaction.

There was also a theme of storytelling and how the truth may be bent or altered over time, or through various lenses. Sometimes, too, people care less about the truth than about thinking of someone or something in a particular way, even if it isn’t true. Overall, even though this fable had the potential to be interesting, considering how much this world and series had to offer (based on the first book), this story was definitely a letdown.

3 stars

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