James Nicoll Reviews

Ann Liang’s 2024 A Song to Drown Rivers is a stand-alone historical novel.

Cruel Wu has subjugated noble Yue. Wu soldiers massacred the helpless people of Yue. Among the victims is Xishi’s beloved younger sister Susu. Xishi is filled with hatred towards the Wu.

Xishi is also a peerless beauty. Royal advisor Fanli believes Xishi’s beauty and her loathing of Wu will make Xishi into Yue’s greatest weapon.

But first! A word about the Spring and Autumn period.

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Ann Liang’s 2022 If You Could See the Sun is a stand-alone modern fantasy novel.

Sun Yan — Alice Sun in America — was born in China, raised in the United States, then returned with her homesick parents to China. Her successive dislocations have made sure that she’s an outsider everywhere. Sun is Chinese to Americans and American to the Chinese.

Sun stands out in a different way at the prestigious Airington International Boarding School. She is the only scholarship student in a student body otherwise made up of the children of the rich. Maintaining her scholarship demands top marks. Even so, her scholarship only covers half the 350,000 RMB¹. Sun’s education places an onerous financial burden on her parents.

Her parents’ oblique suggestions that she consider other schools, including one back in the US, hint at the unpleasant truth. They cannot afford to keep sending Sun to Airington.

Fate hands Sun the means to earn her tuition, at the trifling cost of her soul.

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