Author: Nghi Vo

Review – A Mouthful of Dust

Posted May 15, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 4 Comments

Review – A Mouthful of Dust

A Mouthful of Dust

by Nghi Vo

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 128
Series: The Singing Hills Cycle #6
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Wandering Cleric Chih of Singing Hills and their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant come to the river town of Baolin chasing stories of a legendary famine. Amid tales of dishes served to royalty and desserts made of dust, they discover the secrets of what happens when hunger stalks the land and what the powerful will do to hide their crimes.

Trapped in the mansion of a sinister magistrate, Chih and Almost Brilliant must learn what happened in Baolin when the famine came to call, and they must do so quickly... because the things in the shadows are only growing hungrier.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Pretty much anything by Nghi Vo is an auto-read for me, so I grabbed A Mouthful of Dust eagerly. In this one, Chih is looking for the stories of a recent famine, and plunges straight into a clearly fraught local situation. Cannibalism is more or less taken for granted in these situations, and Chih expects to find it, but people have all kinds of secrets around a famine, and the local magistrate definitely wants to hide something — and it… isn’t cannibalism?

This one’s a bit creepy, and it feels like Chih’s definitely in some danger. It feels really short, though: not incomplete, but it’s a small spare mouthful, lean with famine and shame. I’d maybe have liked one or two more stories; maybe I’d have liked a certain character to tell her story to Chih and give her own point of view…

In any case, this also reminded me that I’d really like to reread some of the earlier books in the series. Like the others, it pretty much stands alone once you have the basic concept, but it references the Empress of Salt and Fortune, and that made me remember how long it is since I read the book of that name, and that I’ve half-forgotten her story.

A lovely, lovely series of novellas, though they go some dark places. It’s an amazing concept for a series which lets Nghi Vo explore a whole range of themes and locations.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The City in Glass

Posted February 23, 2025 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The City in Glass

The City in Glass

by Nghi Vo

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 215
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

The demon Vitrine—immortal, powerful, and capricious—loves the dazzling city of Azril. She has mothered, married, and maddened the city and its people for generations, and built it into a place of joy and desire, revelry and riot.

And then the angels come, and the city falls.

Vitrine is left with nothing but memories and a book containing the names of those she has lost—and an angel, now bound by her mad, grief-stricken curse to haunt the city he burned.

She mourns her dead and rages against the angel she longs to destroy. Made to be each other’s devastation, angel and demon are destined for eternal battle. Instead, they find themselves locked in a devouring fascination that will change them both forever.

Together, they unearth the past of the lost city and begin to shape its future. But when war threatens Azril and everything they have built, Vitrine and her angel must decide whether they will let the city fall again.

The City in Glass is both a brilliantly constructed history and an epic love story, of death and resurrection, memory and transformation, redemption and desire strong enough to reduce a world to ashes and remake it anew.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I really liked Nghi Vo’s The City in Glass, but I can imagine that some people loathed it, for exactly the same reason: it’s more of a mood than a story. There’s a story, yes: angels destroy the city the demon Vitrine loves, and she curses one of them in retaliation. Cast out from his people, he watches her try to rebuild, and she slowly heals — and draws him closer to her, eventually — and learns to love the new shape of her city, of herself, and of him.

As you see, it’s possible to summarise a plot arc here, but most of it feels like a dream, glimpses of Vitrine’s life, a few moments of something that could go on forever without real beginning or end. If you’re looking for a beginning, an ending, and a journey in the middle… you’ll probably not be satisfied. It’s beautifully written and atmospheric, and there are moments of fraught emotion and of joy, but very little actually happens. It’s Vitrine’s daily meddling, Vitrine’s anger, Vitrine’s grief.

To be clear: I really, really enjoyed it, and read it really fast. But if you’re looking for a solid plot, for character development, in other words for a traditional story, it’s probably not entirely for you.

Rating: 4/5

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Review – The Brides of High Hill

Posted January 21, 2024 by Nicky in Reviews / 0 Comments

Review – The Brides of High Hill

The Brides of High Hill

by Nghi Vo

Genres: Fantasy
Pages: 128
Series: The Singing Hills Cycle #5
Rating: four-stars
Synopsis:

Nghi Vo's Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle returns with a standalone gothic mystery that unfolds in the empire of Ahn.

The Cleric Chih accompanies a beautiful young bride to her wedding to the aging ruler of a crumbling estate situated at the crossroads of dead empires. The bride's party is welcomed with elaborate courtesies and extravagant banquets, but between the frightened servants and the cryptic warnings of the lord's mad son, they quickly realize that something is haunting the shadowed halls.

As Chih and the bride-to-be explore empty rooms and desolate courtyards, they are drawn into the mystery of what became of Lord Guo's previous wives and the dark history of Do Cao itself. But as the wedding night draws to its close, Chih will learn at their peril that not all monsters are to be found in the shadows; some monsters hide in plain sight.

I received a copy of this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Nghi Vo’s latest Singing Hills novella starts off by setting you up with some expectations, right from the blurb, and skillfully leans on that to guide you through the novella to the crisis point. It feels darker to me than the previous novellas in this series, with a real sense of unease throughout — not that the others have no sense of looming consequences, but I was more frightened for Cleric Chih than I usually would be. Chih has been drawn into something they may not be able to get out of, where they’re not so much an observer anymore, or just interested in how things turn out, but a part of the tale and critically affected by whatever will happen. Which is not the first time, I suppose, but this just felt more immediate.

I think Vo does an amazing job at teasing things out, with some little hints along the way to help you catch on so that once it all becomes clear, it’s really clear. It’s difficult to say much about this story without spoiling that journey, so I won’t say any more on that.

I did find that once certain things started happening, it all unravelled really quickly and I almost stumbled. I guess that’d be my only critique, but the story caught me when I stumbled and rearranged the world so everything made sense, so maybe that moment is really just part of the experience.

Rating: 4/5

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