SFF

The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Tor.com. Mar. 2020. 128p. ISBN 9781250750303. pap. $11.99. FANTASY
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After war comes a political marriage: A young royal woman from 
the north arrives in the Emperor of Ahn’s palace to become Empress and signal a new beginning. But In-yo is a stranger in a strange land, reviled for her foreign origin, and eventually exiled to 
a mage-created summer prison after birthing a son. With her is Rabbit, a handmaiden sold by her family to the palace to cover a 
tithe, becoming friend and confidante to the new empress. For the 
next four years, In-yo’s surface is stoic and resigned, but as spies and 
fortunetellers sift through her residence, she begins to ascend a path that will lead her 
away from the decisions of the men in power—to find her own.
VERDICT Rich details and emotional prose captures readers from the first page of this imaginative and powerful novella. Spun through reflections of the past, in archived objects of love and 
hate, the tale of Rabbit and In-yo lights up the dark history of monarchy and turns it into a delightful feminist fantasy.
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