Shanghai Immortal by A. Y Chao

Pages: 352 

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton 

Released: 1st of June 2023 

This richly told adult fantasy debut teems with Chinese deities and demons cavorting in jazz age Shanghai.

Pawned by her mother to the King of Hell as a child, Lady Jing is half-vampire, half-hulijing fox-spirit and all sasshole. As the King’s ward, she has spent the past ninety years running errands, dodging the taunts of the spiteful hulijing courtiers, and trying to control her explosive temper – with varying levels of success.

So when Jing overhears the courtiers plotting to steal a priceless dragon pearl from the King, she seizes her chance to expose them, once and for all.

With the help of a gentle mortal tasked with setting up the Central Bank of Hell, Jing embarks on a wild chase for intel, first through Hell and then mortal Shanghai. But when her hijinks put the mortal in danger, she must decide which is more important: avenging her loss of face, or letting go of her half-empty approach to life for a chance to experience tenderness – and maybe even love.

What I Have to Say 

I loved the vibrant setting and the Chinese concept of the afterlife, but the character was so, so annoying. The character was meant to be approaching adulthood at 100 years of age, but half the time she acted like a five year old. It was a relief during the times when she actually decided to be responsible for stuff because we got a break from the brattiness. 

Despite that though, I really enjoyed the book. The setting was just really interesting and I was invested in seeing how everything worked. I loved the idea of the roosters coming into hell because it was popular to burn paper roosters for the dead so that hell was just infested with wild roosters. That really spoke to me. 

I enjoyed the stuff in the mortal world as well. It was nice to see Jing away from the pettiness of the court so that she could just relax and be herself. It didn't get rid of all of the brattiness, but it did help a lot. 

Read for Chinese culture and traditions and a really interesting world. 

4 stars 

My thanks go to Netgalley and Hodder & Stoughton for providing me with this copy for review. 

 

Fake Dates and Mooncakes by Sher Lee

Pages: 272 

Publisher: Macmillan 

Released: 16th of May 2023 

Fake-dates, mooncakes and rich people problems. But love wasn't meant to be on the menu ...

Meet Dylan Tang: he juggles school and delivery runs for his aunt’s struggling Chinese takeout in Brooklyn. Winning a mooncake competition could bring the publicity they need to stay afloat.

Enter Theo Somers: a charming, wealthy customer who convinces Dylan to be his fake date to a family wedding full of crazy rich drama. Their romance is supposed to be just for show . . . but soon Dylan’s falling for Theo. For real.

With the mooncake contest looming, Dylan can’t risk being distracted by rich-people problems. Can he save his family’s business and follow his heart—or will he fail to do both?

What I Have to Say 

 The two best things about this book were the dog (Clover the corgi, named after the author's own dog) and the mooncakes. Though there could always be more dog moments, both lived up to expectation. The food descriptions in this book in general were wonderful and a lot of snacking happened while I was reading it, but the talk of different methods to make mooncakes was my favourite because I've never thought about what it entails. I've never had a snow skin mooncake or one with chocolate in, but now I want to try them! 

The characters were very lifelike and I loved how much the book showed the feeling of family. Dylan's family was wonderful and I could really feel the love, but I could also feel a lot of love between Theo and his cousins. It gave the book such a loving vibe. 

The only problem I had was that all Theo seemed to do was help Dylan out. It seemed that Dylan was always the one needing rescuing and Theo was always the rescuer. I would have liked a bit more balance as it got old fast. 

Read for a warm loving family dynamic, rich people drama, a cute dog and lots and lots of mooncakes! 

4 stars 

My thanks goes to Macmillan and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review. 

Vera Wong's Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Sutanto

Pages: 341 

Publisher: HQ

Released: 30th of March 2023 

Put the kettle on, there’s a mystery brewing…

Tea-shop owner. Matchmaker. Detective?

Sixty-year-old self-proclaimed tea expert Vera Wong enjoys nothing more than sipping a good cup of Wulong and doing some healthy ‘detective’ work on the internet (AKA checking up on her son to see if he’s dating anybody yet).

But when Vera wakes up one morning to find a dead man in the middle of her tea shop, it’s going to take more than a strong Longjing to fix things. Knowing she’ll do a better job than the police possibly could – because nobody sniffs out a wrongdoing quite like a suspicious Chinese mother with time on her hands – Vera decides it’s down to her to catch the killer.

Nobody spills the tea like this amateur sleuth.

What I Have to Say 

This book was wonderful, I loved the characters so much. Vera was like no other character I've seen before and yet I could imagine her perfectly. She had such life to her. I would love to go to her tea shop and try her tea, it sounds just like the sort of place I like to go. 

As with all mysteries, obviously, the case was important to the book. But I found the more we got into it, the less I was actually bothered by it. I didn't want to see it solved and see one of the characters I'd grown attached to locked up for murder! I loved them all. But the solution came and I was satisfied with it. It had just the right number of twists to stop it from being predictable and yet the clues were all there in the text. 

I think this is standalone, but I would quite like to see it become a series. Now Vera's got a taste for solving crimes will she really go back to just running the tea shop and managing the people in her life? I'm not ready to be done with this characters yet. 

 4 stars 

My thanks goes to HQ and Netgalley for providing me with this copy for review.