If it was more like YA than middle grade, I probably would've liked it more. She acts like a kid, worse than, even.Īnd to be honest, I knew not to expect an adult-adult book from this, but I also wasn't expecting something that feels like middle grade either. Then the main character, Lady Jing, she can be almost 100 all she wants, but she doesn't act like it at all. That really brought the book's rating down for me. I'd be willing to overlook it, if it didn't keep showing up repeatedly among other, ill-fitting words. In theory this sounded like something I'd love, but when I actually opened it, and was greeted with the word ta-tas in the first chapter (probably first page too, but it showed up as the second for me) I knew this would not be the case. Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Hodder for an ARC So, for me, promising but nowhere near as engaging or entertaining as I’d hoped, although I’ll be interested to see where the next instalment leads. There are some marvellous descriptions and atmospheric elements, and the world-building has great potential, but the plot’s often drowned out by the details, scenes could seem overly drawn out and the pace never quite evened out. It’s a fascinating premise and the background is beautifully researched, grounded in historical fact and Chinese mythologies, but the narrative itself never quite took off for me, it starts incredibly slowly with a ton of exposition, and the numerous attempts to establish Jing as feisty and iconoclastic felt a little forced. The story follows Lady Jing as she attempts to break free from her lowly position and solve an ancient mystery, one which will bring her into close proximity with a human, Tony Lee.
Chao’s immortal Shanghai reflects the decadence of its mortal counterpart but is even more given to danger and intrigue, populated by Yaojing demons and spirits who are able to see through the veil shrouding human Shanghai.Ĭhao’s novel focuses on Lady Jing part spirit fox and part vampire, she was apparently sold by her mother to the King of Hell to pay for her parent’s expensive habits. Known for its hard drinking and gambling culture, it also attracted artists and writers like Isherwood and Noel Coward. Shanghai, then known as the Paris of the East, was an open city, a place that would admit anyone without the need for passports or visas, a place of reinvention and excess, home to numerous refugee communities from aristocratic Russians to Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. It unfolds in a version of the 1930s, set in a shadow world of immortals existing in parallel with mortal Shanghai. Chao is the first in a projected trilogy. This debut novel by Chinese Canadian writer A.Y.
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