A Song to Drown Rivers: Deluxe Edition
INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLER
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An October 2024 Indie Next Pick • An October 2024 LibraryReads Pick
Order now and receive the stunning DELUXE LIMITED EDITION while supplies last―featuring a gold foiled cover, gorgeous sprayed edges with stenciled artwork, as well as exclusive metallic ink patterned endpapers and unique foiled front and back case stamps. This breathtaking collectible is only available on a limited first print run, a must-have for any book lover.
“Exquisite and devastating. It won’t fail to move you.” —Shelley Parker-Chan, #1 bestselling author of She Who Became the Sun
Inspired by the legend of Xishi, one of the famous Four Beauties of Ancient China, A Song to Drown Rivers is an epic novel steeped in myth about womanhood, war, sacrifice, and love against all odds as the fate of two kingdoms hangs in a delicate balance.
Her beauty hides a deadly purpose.
Xishi’s beauty is seen as a blessing to the villagers of Yue—convinced that the best fate for a girl is to marry well and support her family. When Xishi draws the attention of the famous young military advisor, Fanli, he presents her with a rare opportunity: to use her beauty as a weapon. One that could topple the rival neighboring kingdom of Wu, improve the lives of her people, and avenge her sister’s murder. All she has to do is infiltrate the enemy palace as a spy, seduce their immoral king, and weaken them from within.
Trained by Fanli in everything from classical instruments to concealing emotion, Xishi hones her beauty into the perfect blade. But she knows Fanli can see through every deception she masters, the attraction between them burning away any falsehoods.
Once inside the enemy palace, Xishi finds herself under the hungry gaze of the king’s advisors while the king himself shows her great affection. Despite his gentleness, a brutality lurks and Xishi knows she can never let her guard down. But the higher Xishi climbs in the Wu court, the farther she and Fanli have to fall—and if she is unmasked as a traitor, she will bring both kingdoms down.
"Stunning and heart-rending." —Chloe Gong, #1 bestselling author of Immortal Longings
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Community Reviews
What’s it about?
This story was inspired by the legend of Xishi- one of the four great beauties of China. Xishi is in her late teens and lives in a small village in Yue. Xishi is a good girl known for her great beauty. To the villagers, her beauty insures a good match, and thus her family will be taken care of. When she accidentally meets a young military advisor from afar, her fate is suddenly changed.
What did it make me think about?
The complexities of war.
Should I read it?
OK- so I want to say this is a “fun” read but that seems wrong when it has some definite things to say about the futility of wars. BUT- it was a quick and easy read. I enjoyed the pace of the story. It kept you interested, and yet it took time to develop complicated characters. I was not surprised to learn later that it was written by an author who previously wrote YA fiction. My only criticism is that it was often a little unbelievable that adult characters would make some of the decisions these characters make. But I still really enjoyed this quick, fast, fantasy, romance, war novel. If you are looking for something original to distract and entertain you- try this one.
Quote-
“People always prefer the beauty who is oblivious, unaware of her own power, who blushes easily and is taken aback by strangers’ approval, who is soft and demure and lacking in just enough confidence so as to seek it out in the opinions of men. But these are such lies. All my life, the very same people had told me time and time again how gorgeous I was. How could I not know it? That was like growing up not knowing you were tall.”
I wasn't sure about this one at first... but I ended up being invested in it. The parts that got me were the relationships, and how they can break you. Also, I think I'm a Fuchai apologist. The poor guy was just clueless.
Read this a few months back. There were a lot of things in the novel that worked for me. The writing did very well imitating the feeling of learning ancestral folklore - it was lyrical but not complicated, and added the right kind of both tenderness and intensity to heartbreaking and pivotal scenes. The mythological atmosphere of the novel was complimented by Liang's writing and by how she described not only the settings in her story but also the characters and events. All of the characters in the story were interesting and well-rounded and I found myself falling for Xishi just like the men around her. I was never once bored while reading this novel.
What I think did not work so well was the romance. While I could certainly feel the longing between Xishi and Fanli, it felt far too rushed to be anything other than surface level. After only a week or so spent in training to initiate their plan to take back their kingdom, the two main characters seem to already be deeply drawn to each other and Xishi is constantly falling deeper for Fanli. Not only does the short time span of their love make the romance seem trivial, but so too does the fact that the novel does not give very much detail as to what exactly happens during training - there are instead time skips to get the main plot of the novel started. This is an issue because the majority of the time that Xishi and Fanli spend together is during training and once it is complete, they spend years apart and only see each other sparingly. It feels as if there is no foundation to their love for readers to see besides initial attraction and curiosity and made me wonder why they still felt obligations towards each other years later.
I was also not a big fan of the end of the novel and I am still trying to wrap my head around what Liang meant to teach readers. Spoiler alert! The novel does a good job of getting across the point that war is not black and white, that there is good and evil on both sides and perspective changes everything. What I do not understand is why, at the end, Liang chose to romanticize and soften the enemy Wu king, Fuchai, and even went so far as to have Xishi feel pity for him yet at the same time hardened and villainized the Yue king. If the point Liang wanted to convey was that all rulers are corrupt, selfish, and not to be trusted, why would she humanize the Wu king and show his emotional side? It felt as if we are supposed to forgive all the evil he has done simply because he is a boy in love who is going to die, yet we are supposed to hate the Yue king because he killed someone who he thought would be a threat and wanted to protect his kingdom. Yes, everyone contains good and evil inside of them but this ending felt heavily biased to make Xishi forgive Fuchai and all the evil acts he did. To me, this is a mishandling of the themes of war and colonialism. If anyone can help me better understand Liang's motivation for romanticizing the Wu king's death and for having the Yue king kill Xishi I would greatly appreciate it!
As a side note, was anyone else confused by Xishi's heart defect? I kept waiting for it to be relevant to the plot or to her character but besides being mentioned once or twice in the beginning it was virtually irrelevant.
A Song to Drown Rivers is certainly a beautiful and emotional novel despite the fact that there are weaker elements in it. However, once I finished the story I was still thinking about it a week later and because of that, I feel that most readers will enjoy it.
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