If you want to read about the intracacies of Chinese pirate politics and war strategy, this is the novel for you! ( )

If you read the reviews of this book, what you will immediately realize is that everyone assumed a book about history's most famous female pirate would be swashbuckling, but swashbuckling is not what this book is about. Indeed, there are very few battle scenes in this book and those that are included are almost always the ones going badly.

No. What this book is about is power. The consequences of both having it and not having it, and whether or not one person can truly control or change their fate. It is a very reflective and introspective novel, focusing on Shek Yeung's decision-making after the death of her husband, in choosing new alliances and assessing old ones, in interpreting signs, visions, and rumors. The central question she wrestles with through the novel is basically, how long do I fight to maintain this way of life that I did not even choose, and when do I knew it is time to walk away?

This is a fictionalized story, not an attempt at biography, but I don't know enough about the subject to know how far it deviates, or how much is actually known about her life in the first place.

There is abundant queerness in the novel, though mostly in the background and in a rather matter-of-fact way. It doesn't seem to interest Shek Yeung much either way, and the entire novel is lived in her interiority.

What I liked most about this were the reflections on gods, belief, and the afterlife. There are many gods and goddesses present, from a variety of traditions, but all from the point of view of what, if anything, they do for the believer. If one shouldn't cry about one's fate, then why does anyone pray to anyone or anything?

Ultimately I think that I, like many readers, was looking for something different from this book than what I got, but still got more than enough from it to be happy that I read it. ( )

Follows Shek Yeung, a fierce pirate queen, after the death of her current husband as she figures out a way to hold onto her power and place in the world as a woman in a dangerous profession.
I was hooked at the description of this book as a 'riveting adventure novel about a legendary Chinese pirate queen' and was eager to read it, but unfortunately it was a misleading description. It's a short and quick book and one of the rare times that I'll say a book should have been tripled in length. Chang-Eppig has engaging and fleshed out characters in a rich world tapestry with pirate alliances, the Chinese government, foreign parties, and Chinese myth and folklore that would have made for an incredible adventure epic. Instead it's cut up and chopped in a dissatisfying way. It's also more feminist tale of motherhood than it is seafaring adventure, most of the book focuses on this, which is all good, but definitely not what the book is portrayed to be.
There seems to be a lack of clear direction on what the focus of this book was meant to be - adventure epic or trials of motherhood and ends up being neither, interesting starts but never brought to their full potentials. I think this author has great potential given their ideas, world building, and characterizations, but needs a little more direction or time to let them come to fruition. ( )

This was perfectly fine, but I think it needs to be a little more one thing or the other. It is very literary, focused on relationships and power dynamics, while the topic is female pirates navigating a very masculine and dangerous profession. I really enjoyed it, but something felt missing, I either needed more adventure or more character development. ( )

Refreshing to read a historical fiction novel based on a powerful Asian woman, but I was not able to connect at all with the characters or the story. ( )