Today’s review is for a wonderful debut I had the honour of receiving an advanced reader copy of, and thoroughly enjoyed reading.
Of Jade and Dragons (OJAD) by Amber Chen is a YA fantasy silkpunk loose retelling of Mulan, mixed in with a murder mystery and with a trial involved as in Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim (if you’re new here, I adore Lim’s work so that made me even more excited to read OJAD)!
My full review can be found below.
About the Book
Title: Of Jade and Dragons
Series: Fall of the Dragon #1
Author: Amber Chen
Publisher: Penguin UK and Viking Books for Young Readers (US)
Release Date: June 18th 2024
Pages: 512
Source: ARC provided by the publisher (this in no way affects my review which is honest and unbiased) and I also have bought three finished copies!
Rating: ★★★★★★★★★★
Synopsis
Eighteen-year-old Aihui Ying dreams of becoming a world-class engineer like her father, but after his sudden murder, her life falls apart. Left with only a journal of her father’s engineering secrets and a jade pendant snatched from the assassin, a heartbroken Ying follows the trail to the capital and the prestigious Engineers Guild—a place that harbors her father’s hidden past—determined to discover why anyone would threaten a man who ultimately chose a quiet life over fame and fortune.
Disguised as her brother, Ying manages to infiltrate the guild’s male-only apprenticeship trial with the help of an unlikely ally—Aogiya Ye-yang, the taciturn eighth prince of the High Command. With her father’s renown placing a target firmly on her back, Ying must stay one step ahead of her fellow competitors, the jealous guild masters, and the killer still hunting for her father’s journal. Complicating everything is her increasingly tangled relationship with the prince, who may have mysterious plans of his own.
The secrets concealed within the guild can be as deadly as the weapons they build—and with her life and the future of her homeland at stake, Ying doesn’t know who to trust. Can she avenge her father even if it means going against everything he stood for, or will she be next in the mastermind’s line of fire?
Review
Of Jade and Dragons starts off at the very beginning with a lovely little scene of our main character just enjoying her peaceful life making mechanisms like her father has always inspired her to; but, within 10 mere pages, Aihui Ying’s world is turned upside down as she discovers her father has been brutally wounded by an assassin.
Her brother wants her to leave it, to not try and work out why her father was killed. Even her father asks her to destroy the object they were searching for and leave it at that, but Ying just can’t. Disguised as a male, she makes her way to the capital in an effort to join the Engineers Guild; continuing her father’s work prior to him moving from the capital whilst searching for answers to his murder.
Along the way, she encounters one of the princes in line for the throne, Aogiya Ye-yang. When he discovers that she’s in disguise and hoping to join the Engineers Guild, in a twist of events he agrees to help her with this. Ye-yang is an interesting character… he’s clearly struggling in some ways, and lonely, and forms a quick, blossoming relationship with Ying.
She meets a wide range of companions through the trial alongside this, including someone who starts off as… not the nicest character, but once Ying breaks through his outward exterior he quickly became one of my favourites for their interactions, and for the way he clearly cares for Ying.
Ying’s journey takes her down a very dark path, and although she ends up learning a lot throughout the course of the book she gets a very low ending for her own self. Thankfully, this is the first book in a duology! So, I’m hoping that Ying gets a happier ending by the end.
Sad endings aside, this was a thoroughly enjoyable read and full of action, so I’ll definitely be reading book two as soon as possible to see where things lead to!
“A lamp can light up the darkness around you, but a story lights up the darkness within.”
Will you be reading this?
If you enjoy my content please consider supporting me through any of the following:
♥ Ko-Fi — Bloglovin’ — Facebook — Instagram — Twitter — Wishlist ♥
Leave a Reply