She Who Became the Sun
- By: Shelley Parker-Chan
- Narrated by: Natalie Naudus
- Length: 14 hours 36 minutes
Bookseller pick
If you enjoyed The Song of Achilles, then you’ll love She Who Became the Sun.
“Can you switch your fate with another’s? Can you seize the opportunity to become great when everything in the world is hell-bent on making you nothing? Zhu’s destiny was nothingness, a destiny that terrifies her. When her brother dies, she decides to take his destiny. Thus begins her journey through monasteries, cities, and wars. She encounters a Eunuch general who struggles with his identity and desire for revenge, a monk who bends the rules to survive, a woman whose strength is in her vulnerability, and a whole cast of amazing characters. This retelling of the establishment of the Ming Dynasty is exquisitely told. It has everything I love in a fantasy adventure: a trickster monk, a tortured warrior, fate, and lil’ bit of magic.”
Izzy, Off the Beaten Path
Bookseller pick
She Who Became the Sun
“Zhu’s tooth-and-nail fight for her destiny merges hero and antihero into a transcendent figure with an incomparably strong will. She Who Became the Sun carves out a bold and bloody new genre of epic fantasy.”
Jessie Prutisto-Chang, Third Place Books
Bookseller pick
If you enjoyed Girls of Paper and Fire, then you’ll love She Who Became the Sun.
“WOW, WOW, WOW! What a STUNNING book! She Who Became the Sun is equal parts beautiful and brutal, powerful and poetic. This is an enchanting tale filled with hardship and sorrow and an unwavering will to survive. What are you willing to do to achieve greatness? Zhu Chongba will do anything and sacrifice everything. This is an epic fantasy that reimagines the founding of the great Ming Dynasty. You won't want to miss this book!”
Anna, The Well-Read Moose
Description
Mulan meets The Song of Achilles in Shelley Parker-Chan's She Who Became the Sun, a bold, queer, and lyrical reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty from an amazing new voice in literary fantasy.
To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything
“I refuse to be nothing…”
In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…
In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.
When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.
After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books
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