A review by rainbowbrarian
The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo

5.0

 The marriage of Empress In-yo was a political one.  A way to keep the Northern territories under the emperor’s control, after her father and all her brothers had been killed.  But the Emperor doesn’t need to keep his new wife around once she’s provided him with an heir.  In-yo finds herself exiled to a remote province, kept in a state of constant summer by the empire’s mages.  Her young hand maiden, Rabbit, recalls that the Empress was perhaps not as helpless as everyone had hoped.

I had a little bit of a struggle when I started this book.  There are a number of fantasy creatures and terms that the reader is just given without any explanation.  I had to figure out, oh, that’s some kind of sentient talking bird... and this must be some kind of magic thing.  But the story is WELL worth it.  Don’t let that small amount of front loading put you off.  

A cleric of the Singing Hills Monastery is sent to catalog the exiled home of the late empress and record it’s contents for the archive.  Cleric Chih meets Rabbit there and as they discuss the contents of the house we learn the story of what really happened during In-yo’s brilliantly orchestrated rise to power.  It’s a wonderful tale of what happens when you try to crush powerful women.