Book cover of Forest of a Thousand Lanterns

Book description

The Wrath and the Dawn meets Snow White and the Huntsman in this dark and mystical East Asian fantasy reimagining of The Evil Queen legend about one peasant girl's quest to become Empress.

"A richly developed fantasy world . . . Julie C. Dao is a talent to watch."-Marie Lu,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Forest of a Thousand Lanterns as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I adore an anti-heroine story, and Dao delivers in this Asian-inspired reimagining of the Evil Queen about one peasant girl’s quest to become Empress by unleashing the darkness inside her.

The worldbuilding is lush, full of vivid details. The characters have amazing depth, never becoming one-dimensional stereotypes.

The protagonist is wonderfully complex. You sympathize with her at one point and then, in the next, she does something totally hateful. Her dark jealousies and obsession with her own beauty would make you despise her, but you’d also feel her frustration for having her ambition smothered as a woman in a patriarchal…

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These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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