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3.0 

Siren Queen

By Nghi Vo
Siren Queen by Nghi Vo digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

"Lyrical, mesmerizing, and otherworldly. . . stunning proof that Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today. A beautiful, brutal, monstrous Hollywood fantasy.”—Taylor Jenkins Reid, New York Times bestselling author of The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo

Immortality is just a casting call away.


World Fantasy Award Finalist
Locus Award Finalist
Ignyte Award Finalist

An Amazon Best Book of 2022
One of NPR’s Best Books of 2022
Vulture’s #1 Fantasy Novel of 2022
Indie Next List Reading Group Book of 2023

Best of Year Selections at Apple Books | B&N Booksellers | LibraryReads | TIME Magazine | Oprah Daily | The Philadelphia Inquirer | Publishers Weekly | Buzzfeed | Chicago Review of Books | LitHub | Book Riot | Paste Magazine | Geek Girl Authority | Bookish | The Mary Sue | New York Public Library | Vulture | Locus Recommended Reading List | Kobo | The Quill to Live | L. A. Public Library | Audible | Amazon | NPR

An Indie Next and LibraryReads Pick
A Brooklyn Library Prize Finalist

It was magic. In every world, it was a kind of magic.

“No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers.” Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill—but she doesn't care. She’d rather play a monster than a maid.

But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes—even if that means becoming the monster herself.

Siren Queen offers up an enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

66 Reviews

3.0
“Meh”
Colorful personalitiesDiverse charactersMorally ambiguousRelatable charactersBeautifully writtenLyricalDark settingEnchantingHauntingDidn't grab my attention
Thinking Face
Diverse charactersMulti-layered charactersBeautifully writtenFloweryMagical settingSurreal
“My two star rating is very much just my reading experience with this book. The writing style was beautiful. It felt like a fever dream, very surrealist writing, magical realism in the most beautiful way. I just didn’t feel any connection to any of the characters throughout the story and I did like how it painted the dirty underbelly of the film industry but overall it just felt very vapid”
“I really enjoyed this story. The magical element made it more interesting that I had expected. It started out a little dry, but readable, as a story about a Chinese American girl trying to make a place for herself in a world that would always see her as foreign, no matter how well she spoke English. The story is that, but it is also so much more. I didn't see the Urban Fantasy tags before I started reading it. If I had, perhaps my experience with the book wouldn't feel the same. I went in expecting a story about the racism, misogyny, and homophobia of the early film industry. Those topics were certainly covered, but the way the author wove them together using magical elements is, well... magical. Nghi Vo has created a magical masterpiece that gives a look into a very real time period in American film history but uses very unreal elements to bring the shots into focus. Rather than calling it an Urban Fantasy, I might go more with Modern Fairy Tale. It reads like a standard Old Hollywood memoir with an unexpected thread of magic woven through it. The way that magic exists in the otherwise recognizable world reminds me of the way that fairy tales often have a single magical element in a completely average seeming village or kingdom. I truly look forward to picking up more of the author's work.”

About Nghi Vo

Nghi Vo is the author of the novels Siren Queen and The Chosen and the Beautiful, as well as the acclaimed novellas When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain and The Empress of Salt and Fortune, a Locus and Ignyte Award finalist and the winner of the Crawford Award and the Hugo Award. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind.

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