Wow. This. Book. I absolutely loved this book. This was an amazing read from beginning and end. Such a beautiful take on the 4 guardians. These characters are everything. Everyone needs to read this book

4.75/5 stars

Wow wow wow! This book was so thrilling from start to finish. I think I got whiplash a few times while reading this...but in the best way! I think this was such a unique take on the Four Guardians and I absolutely loved it! Most of the books I have read on them before present them as a being of power who usually is used by a good and powerful person--the take on them being demons was just so good!

I love Lan so much, and I also love Zen so much. My heart broke over and over thinking of how strong both of them tried to be and the different paths they walk down because of their experiences. I needed the good times to last more and I need things to be happy in book 2...PLEASE!!

Amelie has such beautiful writing and the prose really brought everything to life. I think my one complaint is that I felt like I didn't spend enough time with any of the locations or the cast outside of Lan and Zen, but this is also what made the book so fast-paced and a total whirlwind! I think if the book had been 200 pages longer I would have been supremely happy.

Overall, I really really enjoyed this book and I loved getting the chance to read it early. I think that Song like Silver, Flame like Night lives up to the standards I had set for it (which is very high considering that I consume C-novels like no other). In the wave of authors writing based upon their culture, Amelie did an absolutely beautiful job and I can't wait to see where Lan and Zen's story goes from here.

This is a work of art. I loved everything about this book, not only the cover is immaculate but the story itself is gorgeous and the writing made me gasp a few times. I recommend this book with my eyes closed.

Song of Silver, Flame like Night might be my favorite book of 2022. Sometimes I find that 500+ page books drag on or aren't exciting, but this one was action-packed. Not a second of this book was boring. This is a stay up late, ruin your sleep schedule, and sleep through your alarms kind of book.

I've been on an Asian fantasy kick recently. Daughter of the Moon Goddess, Six Crimson Cranes, Magic Steeped in Poison. They've all been so much fun, but this one takes the cake. Lan and Zen are complex and mysterious, with tons of secrets and the desire to uncover the other person's history. Zen is by the book, while Lan is more free-spirited (the best kind of grumpy x sunshine, if you ask me). The characters are rich and interesting with world-building to match.

Song of Silver, Flame like Night is a book about balance, will, power, and sacrifice. How far are you willing to go to protect the ones you love? How far is too far? Amélie Wen Zhao does a great job of creating a scratch that you just *need* to itch, questions you won't stop thinking about long after you've finished the first in this thrilling, fantastical series.

This review is posted on GoodReads and submitted to Barnes and Noble and Amazon as of 10/24.

Ok so first of all why are all the book titles so so good now? Like, who decided that? Where can I get their title-making prowness so I can make titles that great?

No one will tell me? Fine, anyway, let’s get on with the review.

So I want to offer the disclaimer that I am not Asian nor am I particularly informed about Asian mythology or the history of Asia (american school system, give us history other than american please). So another reviewer might be more informed than I, and I would recommend listening to them as well as/or more than myself.

Disclaimer over I freaking loved this book. It was really fun and I was immediately drawn in and captivated by the world and the Demon Gods and the magic system! It was super fun to read about and I had so so many questions, and only some of them were answered this book (do not become a netgalley reviewer if you don’t think you can wait for the next book to come out; pro tip). I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and I really loved it.

Zen and Lan were both fantabulous characters and I was rooting for both of them at the same time. They way their pasts so clearly guided them, even when the reader wasn’t 100% certain about what happened in their past, was so so fun. I really enjoyed it and got close to both characters.

However, Lan was definitely my favorite. I liked how driven she was and how she tried to balance her need for connection with her need to protect other people. It seemed really realistic to me and I loved that a lot. She wasn’t a character that I massively connected with, but she was so cool and I aspire to have her ambition.

The relationship between Lan and Zen was also super nice. I liked how it grew throughout the book and I could tell they had feelings for each other without kissing. I also loved how torn they were between their feelings for each other and…other things. But I can’t say any more without spoiling!

The world was so creative and fun to read! All of the different magic systems were super fun and the way the characters viewed each other and their different magics was really fun to read. All of the characters had predujices against various other magic systems and that made it all seem…more real, which I appreciated. I did have a few questions left unanswered (like do the Hin and Elantians get their magic from the same source), but I hope I will learn more in the next book.

And now for that thing that you only ever hear me talk about at the end of a review: the plot. Once again, I really enjoyed it! I thought it was super fun and was always waiting to see what happened next. The way the conflicts and character growth were interspersed throughout the story really made this book great and I was always excited to read more, whether it was learning more about a character’s backstory or reading a battle. It was really nice.

All in all, I would definitely give this book a five star rating and recommend it! Please go buy this book! It’s diverse, fun to read, and the characters are nice to connect to! I recommend it!

This is fabulous start to a brand new fantasy series! Chinese folklore about demon creatures, the qi based magical system, the action packed, hearth throbbing, riveting chapters, execution of the big mystery and well crafted characterization make you addicted to this book! You don’t want to put it down but at the same time you curse yourself for finishing it faster because you don’t want it end so quickly!

The colonialism, the cultural assimilation and Chinese mythology couldn’t get blended perfectly!

Lan is truly complex character: scrap of an orphan begging on the streets of Haakgong. Old Wei: an old mysterious merchant selling contrabands in his store takes her to the only place hed known that would welcome
a girl with no name and no reputation: Madam Meng's Teahouse. She signs a contract
whose terms shed barely been able to decipher, and whose length only seemed to swell and
swell the harder she worked. She becomes a song girl!

Once upon a time she had a different name and different life purpose she cannot remember! Elantian colonizers invaded her kingdom and killed her mother! Only thing left her from her deceased mother is a burn mark on her arm: a mysterious, untranslatable Hin character. Finding the true meaning of the mark may help her to remember her true purpose, saving her from this miserable trapped life!

Zen is practitioner, one of fabled magicians of the kingdom follows the traces of demonic magic. When he meets with Lan, he recognizes the mark on her arm. He realizes she has no idea how powerful she is. She can serve for the survival of the kingdom but if she cannot control her own power, she can turn into a very dangerous enemy.

They have to team up to overthrow Elantian regime but their mission might be more excruciating they imagine!

The love story between Lan and Zen was poignant. The world building, the riveting pacing are as great as the character development.

I honestly devoured this book and enjoyed it a lot! I cannot wait to read more! It absolutely earns highly deserved fine shining, magical, epic, powerful stars!

Many thanks to NetGalley and Random House Children’s / Delacorte Press for sharing this amazing digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest thoughts.

**Received this ARC from the publisher.

This was a beautiful book. The storytelling is very rich and the descriptions and world building are well done without being too verbose. The relationships between the main characters are deeper than a lot of YA books which gives more complexity to the story. The story itself is based on Chinese mythology but it's a different myth from some of the others I've read lately so don't worry about it being a repeat of other recent books.

There is a part about ⅔ of the way through that it does slow down, but it quickly picks back up again, and it definitely pays off in the end. I will be picking up the sequel when it comes out! I have to know what happens...

I'm here for the demonic practictioning! Lots of Untamed themes here. I found that while there was no lack of cringey YA moments in the teen romance, I felt like the narrative was set up in a rich world of history and magic. The pacing varied with the plot, but for the most part, I was heavily engaged. After all, I finished this book in just one day! :) Looking forward to reading the next one!

Received a free copy from Netgalley.

(?) lan. she’s definitely…. an acquired taste. i can see a lot of readers liking her, but also a lot of readers hating her (let’s just say she doesn’t make the best decisions with the brain that she has). she grows on you, though, and i ended up liking her by the final chapters.

(?) zen. spoke like a robot half the time, but i liked him. does he need to be professionally seen by a therapist, though? yes. yes he does.

(?) the plot. girl must save universe but has no idea how to wield the crazy power she has. i never know how to feel about these plots. yes, they tend to be solid outlines, but they also tend to be mediocre and/or forgettable books. because i enjoyed (author)‘s previous trilogy so much, i had faith that the end would pick up. what i DID like was that there were more than the two “good” and “bad” sides. oh, and the plot absolutely picks up around 80%. which leads me to…

(-) pacing. this was totally written as a “first book in the series”. which it is, and i appreciate that the story was thought out and sectioned into different books, but the entire book felt like exposition! yes, i now want to know what’ll happen in book two, but at what cost </3


3.7 stars. recommend: hm. yes, if you don’t mind reading a book just to get to the end.


—————
SEMI-SPOILER, but I just HAVE to mention it:

this story HAD to have been written while the author was watching the star wars prequels. “if you are not with me, then you are against me”? lan literally has to bring balance to the force? and anakin skywalker himself wrote chapter 27.

First of all, let’s take a moment to admire this gorgeous book cover. The first half of the book went surprisingly fast. The pace was great and there was never a dull moment. Dynamic between Lan and Zen was sweet and the romance is charming.Overall, I really enjoyed Song of Silver, Flame Like Night.
I would highly recommend this one to ya fantasy lovers.

ARC kindly provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I wanted to love this book so badly; demon creatures from Chinese folklore, a qi-based magic system, as well as a plethora of interesting characters? All things right up my alley! Unfortunately, many elements of this book fell far below my expectations, culminating to a big miss for me. Song of Silver, Flame Like Night follows two characters, Lan and Zen, on their quest to discover the secrets of the mysterious mark left on Lan's arm after her mother's death, and in doing so, hopefully rid the Hin kingdom of Elatian invaders, who continue to terrorize and pillage the Hin people.

Initially, Lan was a fairly interesting character to follow: her interests seemed varied and she felt very multidimensional. But further into the novel, the reader never sees any growth from her. Every challenge thrust her way is met easily with little to no struggle, the most glaring of these instances being when she picks up a winds instrument and just knows how to play it masterfully since, as a direct quote, she "grew up with music." (But her mother plays a stringed instrument??)

All throughout my read, it was immensely difficult to determine whether this book was intended to be character driven or plot driven, with both elements warring for control of the narrative. There was minimal interpersonal character development, leading to character relationship reveals that felt jarring and disjointed. If a character or event was not directly related to Lan or Zen, it was in stasis in regards to the rest of the story. Every female character that was not Lan was a one dimensional plot device. Many of the overarching lessons imparted to the characters felt contradictory, culminating to a confusing ending. As a result, the pacing, story structure. and characters suffered, resulting in uneven pacing, boorish characters, and a unfulfilling plot.

On the whole, Song of Silver, Flame Like Night was a pretty disappointing miss for me. The only aspect I enjoyed was the small amount of world-building, evoking themes of xianxia/wuxia and ancient Chinese culture. Otherwise, I would recommend passing on this one.

Thank you NetGalley, Amelie Zhao, and the publisher for an early copy of this book! Below is my honest review. 

Summary of Plot: 

Our main character, Lan, is a song girl who wants to figured out what really happened to her mother, whose death she saw with her own eyes. Before her mother died, she seared a symbol on Lan's wrist, which only she can see. Lan encounters a boy, Zen, who can use the ancient, forgotten magic of practitioning (using qi). Lan and Zen go on an adventure to figure out what Lan's mother died to protect. 

Thoughts on the Book: 

The theme of colonialism and the loss of culture, traditions, and identity are brilliantly weaved into the story, and doesn't distract from the fantastical plot. The magic system is one that isn't written too often in YA, so it felt like a breath of fresh air to read this. As a Chinese person, I love this homage to Chinese history and culture. 

Additionally, I really enjoyed reading about Lan and her journey to figure out who she really is. Lan starts off as someone who is simply trying to survive this harsh life that is bestowed upon her. Then as the story progresses, you can really see her dive into the history and culture that she thought was erased by colonialism. Zen is also a very interesting character because he's someone who has a dark past and wants to redeem himself so badly. His relationship with Lan makes my heart shake with excitement. All the side characters played their role well and I will enjoy seeing them in the next book. You know Amelie wrote excellent characters when I felt sad for the mean girl. 

The only thing that bogged me down was all the details in everything. I think some of the details could have been cut out, but that's just a personal preference! 

Overall, this book was really well done and I'm grateful to have received an early copy. Amelie Zhao's writing is beautiful and lyrical, and I can't wait to see what else she writes! 

Would I recommend this book? Yes!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this book!

This book was beautiful! The romance and the magic were well thought out and stunning, Lan and Zen are so sweet together, plot twists were great, the writing was descriptive and easy to read. I really enjoyed the world and the monsters and action, it was a page turner for sure. Also...can we take a moment to just take in that beautiful cover?! It's absolutely breathtaking, a perfect match to the story.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for giving me an ARC copy to read and review. All of these thoughts are my own. May have spoilers!!!

First if you liked the book Daughter of the moon goddess; I really feel like you’ll enjoy this book too. Second of all how dare you kill off Old Wei two chapters in!!! Lan deserved better than that. Okay, rant over about that.

I really like Lan and Zen. I feel like they are both good strong characters. Although this book is lengthy in my opinion, it never really got boring. There were a lot of details and things going on and surprisingly it wasn’t hard to keep up with it all besides with some of the history but I’ve never been good at history lol. There were some plot twist that I didn’t see coming, like Lan’s mother literally sealing the silver dragon into her. That blew my mind.

I also really liked the magic in this story. It was very descriptive and it really helped you visualize what was going on. At some parts I literally felt like I was in the story because it was described so well.

Side note: I really have a lot of hope for Lan and Zen. I just really really like them together. Zen has his own personal battles he’s dealing with and Lan seems pretty well put together on herself, so I’m hoping they will even each other out and be together.

Also, I’m hoping the second book explains a little bit more on some topics because I do feel like we were left hanging lol. I’m just really excited to see where the story goes!

4 stars!

Song of Silver, Flame Like Night by Amélie Wen Zhao Book Review
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Alright, I am going to try to keep this quick because I could go on for days about this book. I would write an entire essay for this book but I’m not sure you all reading this want that. I’ll start with my favorite part, the world-building, it is beautifully elaborate and complex. I love the way Amélie wrote this world, the language and flow of the story is otherworldly. The characters, I love them like I can't get into the details of everyone because I don’t want to spoil anything but each character is intricately woven into the story that is shown and it's mind-blowing what Amelia has done. Like honestly these characters are well-developed and have their own uniqueness which makes them stand on their own aside from the main characters. You know how sometimes authors write characters that are purely there to get the main character to their next arc, Amélie did not go there and it's freaking amazing. I've even found myself liking a character that I hated in the beginning by the end of the book. Lan is such a fun and deeply relatable character for me, I loved her story and the journey she went on, and how she surprised me. Zen is so amazingly not what I expected of him, I had expectations from the beginning and then I was completely taken aback by him. In the best way possible, the vulnerability of his character was beautifully done. The spins the story took, and the twists up to the end had this book constantly on my mind. I couldn't wait to get back to reading at the end of the day. Okay, let me stop before I reveal too much. 😅 I will end this by saying Song of Silver, Flame like Night is so hard to capture in a review for me because I loved it so much and it just feels like my words aren't even close to grasping how truly amazing this book is. I suggest that everyone preorder this book if they can. It’s going to be a top book for 2023. Also hears to hoping a book box features it, cause I would love a special edition.

I was lucky enough to get a copy of the sample at NYCC that came with this eARC. I'm so glad I was able to fit this in and get a chance to read yet another fantastic book by Amelie Wen Zhao.

Big thank you NetGalley and to the publisher for the chance to review this book pre-release. I am OBSESSED with this book. The romance, the tension, the magic. Everything I need in a good book was delivered in this beautiful book, with the biggest bow on top. I will be throwing this book rec at everyone I can. A more formal review will be available on my IG/TikTok and Goodreads.

This is one rollercoaster of a story you wont forget . A C-drama (wuxia/xianxia) in book form , it promises you magic, adventure and angsty romance. Heck the school of white pines rivals Hogwarts. Need I say more.

For fans of Untamed and Daughter of the moon Goddess ,this is sure to not disappoint you

I'm familiar with Zhao's debut trilogy "The Blood Heir" so I'm excited to dive back into her writing. I can really tell the world building will be phenomenal in the first few pages. This was such an action packed book and I can't wait for the next one!

I'm going to write this review with spoilers so be warned! I just want to remember what happened so I can remember for when the next book comes out and I do hope that next book comes quick!

This book follows both Lan and Zen as they meet up in order to figure out what kind of powers Lan has. Lan has been working at a Teahouse, not by will, where she is trying to figure out why her mother was killed and why she has a certain symbol on her arm. Zen notices her and helps her escape when Elantian angels try and take her. They both escape to Zen's school where Lan tries to learn the Way and hone her powers. Lan has a vision that she must visit the Guarded Mountain, which Zen helps her get to. There they find the ocarina, which becomes Lan's tool for her practitioning. When the Ocarina is played, it shows the map of the 4 Demon Gods' locations. Zen is able to figure out the Black Tortoise's location and lies to Lan about saving the village. He takes on the demon, like he has done before, and wipes out a lot of the Elantian army. Lan is also being hunted by the man who killed her mother, because her mother actually sealed the silver dragon into her. In the last part of the book, Lan and Dilaya and Tai must flee in order to save their kingdom. The Elantians have knocked out the school and find out that the Azure Tiger had been kept in the school and protected, but now it has been released. Lan and her friends must now find the Godslayer to kill the demon gods and also use her dragon demon god to fight the Elantians. Zen must also find a way to control his Black Tortoise demon or else he will lose his body, mind, and then soul.

Okay now for my review of the book. I really enjoyed the book. Since the first chapter, I was hooked. I knew Zen and Lan would get together and somehow find a way to fight against the Elantians but also of course go against the masters. The writing was easy to follow and very descriptive. I could visualize everything pretty well. I enjoyed the action scenes and the magic was very intricate. The history of the Kingdoms was a bit confusing, but it didn't take away from the story. When Zen was revealed to be part of the Monsurian clan, oh man that was a twist. I also did not expect Lan to stab Zen in the chest, even though it made sense for her to do so. I hope we get a resolve between those two in the next book. I like Lan and Zen together. I can't wait for the next book and this book isn't even technically out yet.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for letting me read this arc in exchange for an honest review.