Burning Roses
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4.3 • 7 Ratings
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
From Hugo Award Winner S. L. Huang
"S. L. Huang is amazing."—Patrick Rothfuss
Burning Roses is a gorgeous fairy tale of love and family, of demons and lost gods, for fans of Zen Cho and Neon Yang.
Rosa, also known as Red Riding Hood, is done with wolves and woods.
Hou Yi the Archer is tired, and knows she’s past her prime.
They would both rather just be retired, but that’s not what the world has ready for them.
When deadly sunbirds begin to ravage the countryside, threatening everything they’ve both grown to love, the two must join forces. Now blessed and burdened with the hindsight of middle age, they begin a quest that’s a reckoning of sacrifices made and mistakes mourned, of choices and family and the quest for immortality.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Huang (Critical Point) dazzles in this dark, diverse fairy tale remix. Riflewoman Rosa, a riff on Red Riding Hood, and Hou Yi, a mythological Chinese archer, embark on a quest to defeat Hou Yi's former apprentice, Feng Ming, who's using firebirds to blaze a trail of destruction through the countryside. As they pursue Feng Ming, Rosa opens up to Hou Yi about her unhealthy friendship with scam artist Goldie (of three bears fame) and marriage to Mei, a foreign beauty who was imprisoned by a prince-turned-beast. She also tells of her desperate flight East to escape the king's men when her past as a hunter of grundwirgen, wolf-like animals with human intelligence, made her an outlaw. Rosa's emotional journey as she unlearns her bigotry against the grundwirgen is fascinating and well rendered. Meanwhile, Hou Yi, whose desperate drive for immortality fractured her family, is offered a chance to rebuild when her past catches up with her. The quest to stop Feng Ming, and Rosa and Hou Yi's parallel stories of reconciliation with the families they lost in their adventures are expertly woven, giving this slim volume an epic feel. Fantasy fans won't want to miss this.
Customer Reviews
New Tales for Old
Folk tales and fairy tales have heroes, and often villains. “Burning Roses” has both, inhabiting stories which may seem familiar. In fact, heroes and villain will be familiar, though their stories may be different from the ones you remember from your childhood, and telling the heroes from the villains may be harder than you might expect.
Rosa and Hou Yi are nearing the end of their stories, their lives, and probably their ropes as they trek across a landscape as familar to Hou Yi as it is unfamiliar to Rosa. Both of them carry the weight of their actions and the betrayals in their lives, as they help each other in what they both expect will be the last battle. But their stories may end very differently from what they expect, and what you remember.
This is a marvelous subversion of familiar tales, and an examination of the meaning of friendship and family. It is also an enjoyable fusion of European and East Asian folk tales. Strongly recommended.