This is one of those books that should be enjoyed on audiobook if you are able. What a ride this book was! This is a book I would never have picked up on my own and I’m so glad I did! I loved Bob’s narration, I loved the story and I loved the ending. The two songs that he wrote for the book are a lot of fun and really bring the story to life!

This book is a short and quick read, which is both a pro and con.

I got through this in one sitting. The prose is pretty and easy enough to follow. The naming of the characters is a little jarring at first. The author attempts integrate Chinese culture but this often went over my head, especially as I did the audiobook. The audiobook narrator was good, and I liked her voice and cadence.

If you are going to write a fantasy book that is less than 150 pages, your world building needs to be immaculate, deliberate and clear. All of these things were lacking in this book. I got the vague notion that the North lost a battle or a War and this girl, the future Empress, was their collateral for that. We do not get the full picture of anything, even at the end.

While I love the non-binary representation, the way that the author chose to narrator this book is bizarre. We have a Cleric, who meets with and talks to Rabbit, who is essentially the main character. She is retelling of her time when she was the handmaiden of the Empress in Exile. It's a convoluted game of telephone, and it was frustrating. It felt like it was deliberately trying to be confounding.

Honestly, this should have been a novel, not a novella. More depth and time to build the world would have made this a very solid read, at least for myself.

That being said, I do think I will be trying to read the next few books to see if the world captivates me. They are also novella length.