I neither disliked or thoroughly enjoyed this book.
When Shek Yeung sees a Portuguese sailor kill her husband, she immediately forms a plan to keep her part of the ship. Between the Chinese emperor trying to get rid of pirates, the Europeans coming in an trying to rid the seas of pirates for their own gains, and issues among their alliance, Shek Yeung struggles to lead over her crew.
I picked this up because I wanted a pirate book, and though it wasn’t what I was expecting, I didn’t dislike the book. The beginning was slow, the battles took a long time to come to fruition, the small mystery was easily figured out, and the ending was anticlimactic to me.
Thank you NetGalley for sending me an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Please note this is NOT a middle grade, or young adult book. It may look like one on the cover, and read like one in the blurb but it has prostitution, violence, sex, etc. i it. Nothing worse than Sarah J. Maas has in Court of Thorn and Roses; but it should be listed as Teen, in my opinion.
Onto my review...

Piracy in Asia looked a bit different than you might think… or at least according to Rita Chang-Eppig and her leading lady in Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea.
We meet our lead gal as she is in a conundrum. Her husband has just passed and she needs to find a way to hold onto the captaincy of her ship, a small fleet, and protect those she loves on board her vessel (and keep herself alive as well). Thus she makes decisions that are justifiable; but perhaps not always in everyone's best interest. Although it is worth noting she is a pirate after all...
In no ways is our leading gal a hero; but she's not a villain either. Instead she is the perfect kind of morally grey character most of us are in life. We make good decisions, we make bad decisions; and overall we just have to keep on moving to stay alive. This is the main theme and take away from Chang-Eppig's story. Sometimes it's just about surviving.

I loved the enduringness of these characters, the detail and narrative of the story was also excellent. Although near the end I was kind of tired of our crew and certainly of our leading gal. You can only hear someone express regret so many times before you lack empathy, sympathy, or even any emotion towards them. And so I think a quicker ending would have served this book and our leading lady better.

Please note: I received an eARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an honest and unbiased review.

Not sure how pirate fantasy became a trend for 2023, but I would not be mad if it continued into 2024. Shek Yeung was a formidable and complex heroine, and the glimpses into her backstory made reading about her life in the present even more interesting. The connections to real historical events was also an element of this book that I really enjoyed.

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea was less fantastical than I'd hoped for. The pacing dragged and I had a hard time staying engaged in Shek Yeung's struggle for power. And yet, the premise and writing was enjoyable. I recommend this one more for the historical fiction readers than for the fantasy set.

Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The story is a sort of pirate fantasy with a female lead. Overall, it felt a bit shallow and wordy, with not enough that was compelling in the plot to hold my attention for long. Got through most of the book and skimmed rest. Interesting premise, but execution wasn’t quite there for me — sorry!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me free access to the advanced digital copy of this book, as this book has already been published, I will not share my review on Netgalley at this time.

Historical pirate queen? Yes please! Based on a real woman, this story is more character study than swashbuckling. (Which I loved but important to go in with the right expectations.) It is slow paced and methodical and well-researched and just a feast of a book. Though hopefully our world is at least slightly less brutal now, the themes of what women have to do and who they have to become to survive is unfortunately eternally relevant.

Shek Yeung is just one of a number of woman pirates you'll meet in this fascinating and epic book. Richly realized historical detail combines with expertly paced plotting and nuanced character work to provide a fascinating glimpse into a remarkable historical figure and her contemporaries.

Loved it so much that I bough a copy when it became available as a signed book at my local independent bookstore! Would definitely suggest for friends who love historical fiction :)

Chinese Pirate Queens are finally having a renaissance (hello: our flag means death!) and it is great to have well written books like this at the helm. It took me awhile to review this as I was savouring it so much, much more reflective and thoughtful than exciting or swashbuckling. But you need all sorts of stories!

This had a promising premise, a female pirate breaking gender roles during her time period. I appreciated the commentary on the failures of Chinese society and what encourages people into piratehood.

Unfortunately, the execution to depict the main character’s realistic feat failed for me. I couldn’t properly visualize the scale of the company she commanded, or the forces she was up against. The adventure portion admittedly was enjoyable, but the story didn’t feel fully realized. Possibly it would have benefited from expansion, which might have required several books to do so. The compression forced the story into summary mode when I would have preferred to experience the story with the character.

After the death of her husband and partner, a fierce female pirate must rally her forces against internal and external threats

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the review copy of this book.

I really loved reading this (fictional) historical account of a figure in history that is sadly not well known.

When I read the blurb I immediately put it on my To Read list and then I read it. While the author does start off strong and the story does draw you in the last third of the book lost steam for me.

I was really invested in Shek Yeung's life and admired her life choices to overcome societal gender roles during the time period. The plot faltered when it started off strong as an excellent historical fiction about pirates, solid commentary on the society in China, and what drives people to turn to piracy or how they survive it when thrust into it unwillingly.

Shek Yeung in particular had me eager to learn more, especially knowing some of her history but the book didn't accurately describe the massive size of the fleet she led. It would have been a better read if the reader knew it was the East India Company that she actually went up against instead of the wide brush strokes of the English and Portuguese with no real scope of the massive undertaking that was.

Her story was so captivating until the last third; I really wanted to know what happened to her after the truce between her and the Qing Empire. I mean she brought an empire to the brink where they had to get "foreign barbarians" to stop Shek Yeung and her alliance. And all through this she was fighting for her very survival be it at sea or in childbirth and she inevitably won by outliving her husbands and adversaries.

The book was good if you look at it as a historical commentary on gender roles with a philosophical portrait of Shek Yeung versus the cutthroat pirate adventure it was billed as. I can appreciate Rita Chang-Eppig's portrait of one of the most successful pirates in history and her thoughtful prose but it landed more in the textbook/fictional biography realms rather than an adventure novel.

I received a copy from NetGalley and the publisher for an honest review.

"Those in the sea's thrall, the sea never released. As a child, she'd gazed out at the waves and seen only freedom. As an adult, she knew nothing was so simple."

Thank you to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for sending me an ARC of Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea in exchange for an honest review.

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea is a historical fiction novel about a female pirate named Shek Cheng who holds a prominent commanding position in her husband's fleet. During a battle, Shek watches as her husband is killed by a Portugeuse sailor and her world is changed in an instant. She strikes a deal with her husband's second-in-command in order to remain in command of her half of the fleet.

There were some things I enjoyed about this book and some things that I didn't enjoy about this book. I enjoyed reading about Shek's childhood, what caused her to marry her first husband, and what brought her to piracy. These sections were described very vividly and were super interesting. I also enjoyed the small stories about Ma-Zhou, the goddess that were interspersed throughout the story. The small stories about the goddess also started to mirror what was happening in Shek's life. I found Shek to be a super strong and independent female character that was almost too stubborn for her own good.

As for things I didn't enjoy about this book, I think that there were ultimately way too many characters to keep track of that made portions of the story super confusing to follow. I also felt like the book could have benefited from a map at the beginning because of all the different destinations throughout the story. It was hard to keep track of where the characters were going and when they were at sea. While I thoroughly enjoyed the small stories with Ma-Zhou, I felt like they broke up the story in weird spots. Some of the language/wording also felt unnecessarily flowery.

Overall, I would give this book 2 out of 5 stars.

This was so totally not what I expected. I was definitely expecting more action on the seas while this was more contemplative and very informative, which just made for very dry reading. There was also too much telling and hardly any showing at all. I’ve seen someone call it more lit fic about a female pirate and I probably wouldn’t have gravitated towards the book if it was marketed that way.

I loved this historical fiction. It's a topic I knew nothing about and although I found the plot to be a bit choppy at times (I think the editing needed some work), it was an effortless read that I was fascinated by from start to finish.

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea is a story of hope, loss, strategy, and above all survival. The mythology of Mazu features heavily in this book, and is intertwined with the narrative of Shek Yeung to create an impression of cyclical continuity. The characters in this book could not be termed 'good' or 'bad', which makes them all the more real to me. The book isn't necessarily an easy read, but it is one that is worth embarking on. It has inspired me to look into the history behind the book as well as look forward to other novels by this author.

- thank you to netgalley and the publisher for an arc to review!

- unfortunately, this lacked for me. i was drawn in originally to the description, expecting an exciting rendition of this tale. however, it didn't stick out to me, and dragged way too long throughout the entire book. the characters felt stiff and lack dynamics, and i couldn't feel invested in what was happening in the story. the prose is good, but the lack of development for the characters of the story tore me away from enjoying Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea.

While the writing style was lovely, there was something missing from this one. I was so excited about it. However, while there is nothing inherently wrong with this book, I was just not interested and found it hard to want to continue reading.