Another super good story from Aliette's Xuya universe.   I'm thinking this is probably the longest one so far: it'll certainly keep you occupied for a good while.

Our protagonist, and her mindship friend, have both come back from the dead (that's the exile bit) hell set on revenge against those who executed them.   But revenge isn't quite as straight forward as they would like it to be.

If you haven't read any Xuya stories yet then get yourself over to Aliette's "all things Xuya page" and find out where to start and what it's all about.   Basically, it's just really good sci-fi, from a really good writer, with a wonderful Asian flavour to it all. ( )

I obtained this book as a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Unfortunately, it was only available as a PDF download, which meant the font settings on my Kobo required tweaking.

A novel set in Aliette de Bodard's Xuya Universe setting. It's billed as a Xuya romance, like The Red Scholar's Wake, and isn't linked to any of the other threads in the universe, which are more straight SF.

I found it mildly confusing as characters can have aliases or nicknames - at different stages in life or as part of the literati. Also, there is the Eastern tradition of referring to others by addressing respectfully them as relatives; this can be confusing where actual relatives are also present. I had encountered this phenomenon previously in Robert van Gulik's Judge Dee books, so wasn't phased by it, but it did mean I had to concentrate on the context of the conversation.

Apart from this, it was a rattling good story, better than The Red Scholar's Wake (where I disliked the insta-love trope). The main theme was vengeance against official actions - not necessarily corrupt actions, but overly legalistic actions.

Yes, there was a happy ending!