And his dig at Ouyang and Esen saying he hopes they'll find the courage to be together in another life hurt sooo good.

I cried, I laughed, I wanted these characters to pay for all the awful things they’d done, I desperately yearned for them all to have happily ever afters, and I was always always so impressed and touched by the themes of self-acceptance and fate and how they were woven into the story. In that sense, the novel succeeds immensely, but to someone struggling with their identity I think that this type of book will resonate.Ouyang wore his anger on his sleeve, and he was so consumed by grief that he couldn’t find an outlet to express it other than resorting to self-harm. Instead of waiting for the Yuan to send their Grand Councilor and that central army of theirs to put us down, we’ll march on Dadu together. Where new characters are added, their perspectives may seem at first to be at a remove from the rest of the goings-on, but rest assured that they're all neatly tied together towards the novel's end. There were many twists and turns throughout the story, but what made them land so effectively was the bleeding heart at the centre of each betrayal.

When I was growing up in Dadu, when my father was a general of the Yuan’s central army, we spoke our own Kipchak language at home. With a certainty as crisp as shadow cast across salt, she knew it would always be everything she wanted. I can’t shake the feeling that, if I had been able to read this one immediately after the first, a lot of the emotional beats would have hit more. It shows us their brokenness, it shows us how fractured and desperate and damaged they are and asks us to root for them anyway. Zhu, who not only saw it but also considered herself generally immune to the urges of physical desire, was interested to feel a mild tug in response.I would rather be received face-to-face by my equal than by his honorable wife speaking from behind a curtain of propriety. Her neighbor, the former courtesan Madam Zhang, wants the throne for her husband - and her powerful kingdom has the strength and resources to wipe Zhu off the map. And so it is with even greater betrayal that we see the jagged edges of their differences once more. The writing is so good that the characters’ emotions bleed out from the page, and make you feel as if you’re experiencing them personally. For 80% of the book, I was certain I would give this five stars, however, two moments towards the end left me feeling conflicted.

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied. A truly memorable fantasy duology that I will be thinking about for a long time to come and has set a new standard for me for what I want out of fantasy books from this point forward.This feeling of missing out on something reflects the fact that lives are being ended prematurely in these scenes. There is a point where, after swallowing the world, the only thing left for his darkness to swallow is him. None of the main characters are particularly likable, nor do they have a single good bone in their body, except maybe Zhu.

Zhu, The Radiant King, finds herself feeling unstoppable after her victories and wants to crown herself emperor. The book delves deep into its characters' minds - as well as the first one- so if you want something to be more fast paced and not spending too much time reading what people are thinking, maybe this is not a book for you.In linking these characters together through this narrative, their every action became enlarged into the vastness of the question, what does this mean for the others? Zhu Yuanzhang, the Radiant King, is riding high after her victory that tore southern China from its Mongol masters. I don’t know how well done the other characters were but, I can assure you, this one was a masterpiece. Her army, an infantry-dominated force built from the former Red Turban rebellion and additional peasant recruits, was barely half the size of the Zhangs’ well-equipped professional army.