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Xishi’s beauty is seen as a blessing to the villagers of Yue—convinced that the best fate for a girl is to marry well and support her family. When Xishi draws the attention of the famous young military advisor, Fanli, he presents her with a rare opportunity: to use her beauty as a weapon. One that could topple the rival neighboring kingdom of Wu, improve the lives of her people, and avenge her sister’s murder. All she has to do is infiltrate the enemy palace as a spy, seduce their immoral king, and weaken them from within.
Trained by Fanli in everything from classical instruments to concealing emotion, Xishi hones her beauty into the perfect blade. But she knows Fanli can see through every deception she masters, the attraction between them burning away any falsehoods.
Once inside the enemy palace, Xishi finds herself under the hungry gaze of the king’s advisors while the king himself shows her great affection. Despite his gentleness, a brutality lurks and Xishi knows she can never let her guard down. But the higher Xishi climbs in the Wu court, the farther she and Fanli have to fall—and if she is unmasked as a traitor, she will bring both kingdoms down.
I’m writing this review a few day’s after finishing, and I’m still not sure how I feel about this book. There were elements of it I enjoyed, and others that just didn’t work for me at all, so I have a feeling this is going to be a mixed bag kinda review.
A Song to Drown Rivers is told solely from the POV of Xishi, a beautiful girl who has always been told her looks were more of a curse than a gift. She is someone who has never wanted grand things, simply enough food to feed her family, and for the invading Kingdom of Wu to fall into disrepair. When Fanli, the King’s young military advisor comes to her with a plan to bring about the fall of the Wu kingdom, Xishi knows she will help, even if it means using her looks to worm her way into the Wu King’s bed and whisper thoughts in his ears as she tries to seduce him. Xishi may be beautiful, but that does not make her weak, lesser, though a lot of the men in the court certainly view her that way. Instead she uses this curse, her beauty, to beguile the King, until he believes she is the only person he can trust. It was certainly intoxicating, seeing her have that power and use it to benefit her own Kingdom, and I enjoyed how Liang let her be this calculating without having her fall into the trap that so many other female characters do in this situation, and fall in love with their enemy.
It’s a story that is incredibly fast paced, something that both worked for me and didn’t. I liked how the story never dragged in anyway, even with the descriptive and flowery writing style we usually get with a slower paced story, this one kept the pace throughout. Something I feel is incredibly rare, and I did really enjoy how there never seemed to be a good place to put the book down (I read it in one sitting). The way it fell down for me was with the romance, and with this being described as a romantasy, we are all here for the romance. The two love interests spend very little time together, in fact for the majority of the book they are separated, and it’s very much an insta lust/love kind of situation. So, I didn’t really feel the romance as much as I would have liked.
However, where this story really shone was in watching Xishi seduce the King of Wu. This is where Liang really shines as a writer, not falling into the trap so many others before her did and have her fall in love with him, the enemy. Instead she makes her a woman on a mission, one she will not deviate from, which is understandable when you learn her backstory. Even when she starts to see his humanity, even when he becomes so charming she can’t resist a smile, she reminds herself of the atrocities that happened in his name. Their story could only really head one way, and I felt that their ending was incredibly satisfying. She does maybe start a little naive, thinking that all Wu are monsters, all to blame for the murder of her people, but as the story progresses, and she get’s more involved with the King, she see’s these people as the simple human beings they are. Yes, there are monsters, but they don’t only lurk in the Kingdom of Wu.
So it didn’t overly feel like a romance to me, more a story of a woman using the one thing given to her, her beauty, to try and bring down the Kingdom that waged war on her people and killed her sister. It’s brutal, despite the beautiful writing style, and I enjoyed how the author never shied away from the darker side of being a concubine. The fickleness of men, how Xishi had to fight to gain his attention and then fight even harder to keep it. But it also shows how easily people can accept and believe a pretty face. She worms her way into the Kings bed, his heart so easily, uses her beauty as a weapon, the only one she has available, and it really was spectacular, watching her bring this Kingdom down, piece by piece, until the King was so firmly wrapped around her finger, he could never once believe her of treachery.
The ending certainly shocked me. Knowing this was written by a romance author I expected it to head in a very different direction than it did, but I was pleasantly shocked at how, probably, realistic she kept it. It was definitely heartbreaking, but also seemed almost fitting to the story, as well as the time. Maybe this is how the story it’s based on ends, I’m not familiar with the text so I can’t say for sure, but I definitely think readers will be mixed in their reception of it. Overall, I did enjoy this one. I think calling it a romantasy is a slight leap, it’s more a tragedy, and I think had I gone into it expecting that I might have liked it more. But I think lovers of beautifully written stories, featuring women with vengeance in their blood and a smidge of political intrigue will enjoy this one.
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