Taylor Jenkins Reid’s The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus in this dazzling, fantastical coming of age story from award-winning author Nghi Vo
It was magic. In every world, it was a kind of magic.
“No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers.” Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill—but she doesn’t care. She’d rather play a monster than a maid.
But in Luli’s world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes—even if that means becoming the monster herself.
Siren Queen offers up an enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.
Nghi Vo writes fantasy the way I like. Lyrical. Romantic. Folkloric. Yes, even in the glittering days of 1930s Hollywood.
In Nghi Vo’s Siren Queen, Luli Wei wants to be more than just someone in the background of those smoky dames, bright stars, and the cruel producers pulling all the strings. She wants the type of brightness that this monstrous white America denies gay Chinese American girls like her.
When she walks into a faery land, a fantasy world of film producers, gorgeous film stars, and directors yelling about all the imperfections on the film set, Luli starts dreaming about the magic of Hollywood stardom as the ultimate Dream™. Soon she discovers the dream means sacrificing herself—a bargain with the Hollywood devils. To be one of them means to belong to them. Faces change. Names stolen.
Nghi Vo writes Hollywood, the glimmering imagination we have of America, like a faery story. And faeries are inherently monsters. Popular fantasy books inspired by the common celtic faeries might have you thinking differently, but these creatures are horrific and monstrously cruel. With her great imagination, Vo took those faerie rules and blended it with a historical fantasy about 1930s Hollywood.
That alone made this such a fun fantasy. Vo takes a note from the Golden Age Hollywood’s star system, where studios would give actors a name, a persona, a background story. Actors became bound to their studios. They belonged to them. Much like a human making a bargain with a faery.
I’m absolutely assured that Nghi Vo is one of the greatest minds writing fantasy right now.
It’s not just the idea. It’s also the execution. I don’t just feel like I’m reading a fantasy book with 21st-century language. Nghi Vo uses the eerie, romantic atmosphere of faerie stories and mixes it excellently with that quick-witted, Humphrey Bogart era lingo.
This has character depth. We move through so much of Luli’s life, as she tries to crawl her way into her dream and further away from the immigrant life of her mother and father. The darkness of the world she walks in consumes her, but we get to see those little facets of what makes her want to be among the monsters. The intimate connections she makes with others trapped in the system became some of my favorite aspects. It’s what shaped her character for me. Relationships always show how differently someone reacts when strong emotions are involved.
And my gays, my sapphics pull up a seat. I will leave you with this. Sexy sapphics steam up the pages in this. I fucking love that these sapphics get mixed up in lyrical language. I want to have those intimate romantic descriptions like the rest of lyrical fantasy books.
Siren Queen is a character-rich tale of out-of-this-world beauty, cruel monsters, and fast-talking souls.
Thank you to Tordotcom for an advanced reader’s copy for review.
