I was very excited for this book, but unfortunately I did not have a good time. The premise of this book sounded so excellent and epic, but the execution felt so stale! It's been marketed as a romantasy, but where is the romance!? I think because the idea of this book is like fated love the author didn't spend as much time building up the chemistry between the couples and making their romance feel believable. It was like reading about strangers who we are told "love each other" or have this incredible attraction and then that's it, from their we are expected to believe it. I wish the author had spent more time really building a connection between the characters. Actual romance is more present in one of the timelines, and I definitely enjoyed Don Xian and Liu Xin's timeline the connection between them was developed more.

Also, speaking of timelines, this book features three timelines that are supposed to be interwoven resulting in a love transcends time (this is from the official summary so no spoilers!). This love transcending time was what drew me to the book in the first place, but again the execution was poor in my opinion. The interconnectedness of the timelines is very obvious early on and I felt that took away from any sense of wonder for the reader. There is also very little world-building so you have to do a lot of creation as the reader to imagine the unique aspects of each timeline.

This next criticism is very unique to me, but the marketing of this book as "genre-bending" and "challenging what we know about true love" created an expectation in my mind of this truly epic, eternal romance, but the tone of this book actually is very silly and not very serious and in my opinion didn't match with the way it was described. The tone also didn't really match what I think the book was trying to do, and it made it a bit confusing trying to understand exactly what we're supposed to be taking away from this story. I'm not sure what about this book challenged anything about true love. And finally, the characters themselves were not well developed. I wish we had more time in the heads of all of the characters, I think that would have helped us understand who they are more and make us more invested in their romances! I wish this had happened with all of the main characters, but particularly Dong Xian because that would have helped understand his choices. There were so many instances in this book where I felt that things were just happening randomly, and characters were making completely random decisions, but I think more time developing the characters would have helped give more weight and meaning to some aspects of the plot and the conflicts.

Overall I feel like this book took on a plot too large that it wasn't able to fully realize. I hope that the finished copy is better edited and the plot is more aligned. This book honestly felt like reading a first draft attempt before someone went back and tied everything together. It was kind of a mess and unfortunately was a disappointment for me.

A retelling of the Chinese short story "Huang Jiulang" and the cut sleeve tale of Emperor Ai's relationship with Dong XIan, it adds a third reincarnation of those characters in the modern day. I enjoyed the threads individually, but I'm not sure they fully came together.

This book is being marketed very differently than it should be, in my humble opinion. The fantasy element is rich, complex, and dominates the story. It’s rich in folklore, full of emotion, and deeply original.

While it definitely contains erotic elements, the scenes are short and spread out and don’t dominate the plot. I will also give a CW that there is a non-consensual moment that is central to the plot (this is generally a no from me- I’m thinking maybe I didn’t fully grasp what was happening?) The relationships did feel more developed in some timelines than others and I did find myself wanting more chemistry between the two outside of the physical.

However - I do think the timeline hopping was well done and not difficult to follow, the magic systems and folk magic were clear throughout, and the reincarnation element was so fresh.

No, the question is not whether fox spirits exist. The question is: If one comes for you, can you resist it?

The Emperor and the Endless Palace was a drug and sex fueled Cloud Atlas like story woven from Chinese fables, mythology, and historical fiction. Following three timelines from individual point-of-views, Dong Xian 4 BCE, He Shican 1740, and River Present day, the reader is taken on a reincarnation journey as three souls are forever intertwined.

“To put it as simply as possible, our souls are caught in an endless loop. No matter how many lifetimes we endure, we will not be released from an ancient curse. And once upon a lifetime, I made a promise to you that I would break it.”

As the reader travels in and out of each time period, commonalities are revealed and a picture of tangled love and a magical force working to interfere becomes apparent. What is not always so apparent is which reincarnated soul belongs to whom and who are the souls that truly belong together. There's some initial good vs. evil going on but I liked how as the story went on, it does murky up some of that conventional thinking and shows the battles of temptations and freedom of will playing their part.

Dong Xian, this whole time you thought that you were playing the game, only to realize you are the game.

Each timeline, whether it was Dong trying to strategize for power and influence in the Emperor's Palace against the Emperor's grandmother and cousin, He Shican trying to find where he fits in life and escaping his father's disappointment and unrequited from a doctor who took care of him, or River exploring his sexuality and living out for the first time, provided inner workings and deeper layers into these souls. I thought Dong Xian's timeline was the most thought out and worked the best, He Shican's was the most fantastical and River's looped and jumped around a bit too much creating a “does this all make sense?”.

And I don’t know how else to describe a bittersweet feeling inside me— in this moment that I meet him, I realize I might be lonely for the rest of my life.
His name is Joey.

I would consider this at least straddling the erotic line, sex, and drugs, are constantly playing their part. I don't think I could say I felt the, modern conventional, love between the souls but the endlessly drawn to feeling came through. The writing created an easy pace, if not the story always being clear, and I flew through this. If looking for a reincarnation story that plays with temptations and freedom of will, the setting and influence of Chinese fantasy and historical fiction make this an interesting one to pickup.

This is probably my most anticipated debut of the year, and I'm so pleased to say that it exceeded every expectation. I do want to start out the review by saying that I know this is being marketed as a romantasy, and I have to say, I do feel like the marketing of this book is a bit misleading (which is entirely on the publisher, and absolutely no fault of the book or the author whatsoever). I will say straight off the bat that while I believe this is widely marketed as a fantasy romance/romantasy, I would not personally categorize it as a romance at all, seeing as it does not follow the genre conventions of a romance (namely, it does not have a HEA/HFN). It does have fantastical elements, but I would say that it leans more heavily into the folklore vibes than magic fantasy, if that makes sense. Overall, this is a pretty hard book to categorize, and I love that about it, but it does make it difficult for me to try and figure out who exactly I think it's for.

The Emperor and the Endless Palace is, at its core, a love story that follows two people who are connected by the red threads of fate - their connection spans multiple lifespans, and they are re-incarnated and fated to find their way back to each other in every lifetime. We follow this love story through three lifetimes in particular. The first (chronologically), is a re-imagining of the love affair between Emperor Ai and Dong Xian, and a loose retelling of the origin of the term, "cut-sleeve". In the second timeline, we follow an innkeeper who encounters a nine-tailed fox and enlists the help of a doctor. In the present-day timeline, we are following River, a med school student who meets a mysterious stranger at a rave.

There really isn't much of a plot besides just seeing how their love story ends, and how all the different pieces of each timeline comes together, but in my opinion, that is the beauty of this story. It's a quick read, and incredibly captivating. It takes a while to get into the book, but once it gets going (about 60% of the way in), it does not slow down. The book never overstays its welcome, and by the end, I find myself very satisfied with how everything played out.

I don't usually dedicate a whole paragraph to sexual content in my reviews, but I've seen some people describe this as an erotica, and I can't say I agree with that. There is quite a lot of sex in the book, but none of it feels unnecessary, nor is it particularly explicit. Many of the sex scenes are very short (we're talking a few sentences/paragraphs), use mostly euphemisms instead of explicit/direct language, and are not very graphic at all, so I'm just wondering if people calling this erotica have actually, you know, read erotica, or if there is just some sort of higher standard placed on this book because it's so unapologetically queer. Either way, your mileage may vary on this, but I'd personally call this a steamy book, but not necessarly very spicy, if that makes sense at all. All that to say, I don't feel like the sexual content detracts from the book in any way (which seems to be something that other reviewers feel), and I think that calling it an erotica does it a disservice in the sense that someone looking for an erotica will likely be sorely disappointed. That aside, I will say there are instances of sexual abuse/questionable consent, so do keep that in mind in case that is a trigger for you.

I don't really know what else I can say about this book that won't spoil the reading experience for you, because I feel like that was part of the sheer joy that I had coming out of this book. I went in expecting one thing, but got something entirely different, in a way that I never expected but very much needed. I love the way Huang is able to evoke the feeling of being told a folktale, especially in the past timelines, and the writing is honestly just so good.

I guess in the end, I'd say I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes being taken on a ride by the author, and is open to trusting the author to know exactly where to take this story, even if it's not necessarily where you'd anticipate it go. If you enjoy melancholic love stories, folktales, but also a dash of intrigue, I think you should give this a go. I expected a fun fantasy romance, but instead, I got an unapologetically queer, thought-provoking piece of fiction that just truly can't be placed into any closed box, and it's one of those books that reminds me why I love reading.

This was such a fascinating concept! I haven’t had the pleasure of reading any queer fantasy so heavily inspired by Asian folklore and history before, and this book was better than what I’d hoped for (and after reading the synopsis, my hopes were high). I loved switching between the three lifetimes and experiencing these vastly different, yet reminiscent, circumstances, characters and their unique situations. There were ample sex scenes, as that’s something I enjoy when reading a romance, and they were all written incredibly well. My only (minor) qualm I had is with the endings. I loved the heartbreaking breaking of the cycle in River’s story, and found the end of He Chican’s story sad yet satisfying, but I felt like I was missing something with the ending of the original two lovers’ story. It was explained well enough, so I knew what happened, but I would have liked to have SEEN some of that decline before I was TOLD how it ended. Overall, though, I loved this story. I’ve been looking forward to reading this for months, so a HUGE thank you to Harlequin Books for the E-ARC. I cannot recommend this book enough!

I truly do not know what to say about this book. I'm clearly not the target audience for this book, but I didn't hate it. Ia was quick to get through, and a fun read, even if I did find some of the descriptions...needleslly descriptive. Truly a wild ride. But I enjoyed the characters, and the different setttings were immersive. All in all, this would be a fantastic book for someone looking for a deep dive into the relationships between queer, Asian men.

Thank you NetGalley and Harlequin Books for the ARC of The Emperor and the Endless Palace. This is a story about two men who are connected across time and multiple lifetimes.

I will be honest this is not a normal romance. This is definitely a star crossed lovers romance. We meet the two first in 4BC as an Emperor and a clerk who are pushed together through the machinations of others. They fall for each other but others step in the way of them being together. We also meet them in 1740 as an innkeeper and a fox spirit. Once again we see their feelings for each other grow only to be stopped by outside influences. The final lifetime we meet these two is in the present as River and Joey.

The characters themselves are so well fleshed out including all the side characters across their lifetimes. You truly connect with each reincarnation and the way the book is formatted you see how the same story plays out across their lifespans. Justinian does an amazing job of connecting the different timespans into one full story.

The world building is phenomenal as well. I loved the way that Chinese folklore and history was brought into this book with an amazing fantasy spin. The way this book was written I just could not put it down. I was hooked from the very first page and was so curious to see how the story would end. It definitely did not end the way I was thinking it would but I actually really liked the way it did end. The ending may not be for everyone but I think it held so well to the rest of the story that it truly was the only ending that made sense.

This was an amazing book form a debut author and one that you should add to your TBR. While I loved this book please be aware of the following content warnings: drugs, manipulation, sexual assault, violence, homophobia, and cheating.

Thanks to Harlequin & netgalley for ARC. Comes out tomorrow 3/26

“As their many lives intertwine, they begin to realize the power of their undying love—a power that transcends time itself…but one that might consume them both.”

Ok first I will say if you are worried about following three timelines, I wouldn’t be. Everything is so clearly demarcated and the only thing that is confusing is putting together the puzzle pieces of the mystery aspect. The reincarnation element makes you try to fit characters against each other and try to understand the similarities, what is keeping them together across time and how they keep finding each other. And then there’s a really fun twist to it that I actually didn’t see coming but then when it did come it made me have to rearrange everything I had been thinking which I think is good. It wasn’t a gotcha plot twist tho, promise.

The thing I will warn about is that some of the sex scenes, especially in the older incarnations, use some really cringe euphemistic language that was hard to look at but I am choosing to believe it was intentional for the age even tho it took me out of it LMAO. And also I would say there is a warning missing for SA that occurs a few times in the 4 BCE timeline.

Also if you are expecting a perfect compelling romance with unproblematic characters and a buttoned up happily ever after, this aint it. Its messy, dramatic, complicated, and bittersweet. I feel very strongly about open endings but I think this one was executed well and made sense to me in the context of the story. There’s loose ish ends but it makes sense because if the main characters actually sorted their shit out it would have been a massive change in who they were haha.

I found the 4 BCE timeline to be the most interesting and compelling but that’s probably just personal preference. Overall I did like it. Occasionally I found the writing voice to be a little juvenile coming of age-y despite the heavy content matter, but I would still recommend it.

(review posted simultaneously on Instagram)

Thank you to the publisher for my review copy!

I would recommend The Emperor and the Endless Palace to someone who likes a challenging story and is comfortable with not knowing what exactly is going on. So much of this story has revealed about 65% of the way through, and before that it feels like you’re spending your time getting to know the characters. For me, I wish I had gotten to see the mystery that’s introduced from the beginning, I think it would have created more urgency in the story and made it feel like a more plot-driven book.

Those coming to this book hoping for romantasy - it is not necessarily a romance in the traditional sense, with a focus on the lovers from the start. It is a very character driven story, almost like a coming of age story. Some of these adventures and misadventures also involve drug usage, which made the plot confusing to me - the main character often didn’t know what was going on either!

The spice starts right away but the romance is a slow burn.

Nonlinear timeline - very flowy - there’s 3 time POVs (4 BCE, 1740, present day), but time is very fluid even within those povs, with flashbacks and daydreams. I read a portion of the book twice - first by audio and then in print - and still found myself getting confused.

Overall, I’m glad I read this one. After a string of lit fic DNFs, I was looking for a more challenging read to pair with my more traditional romances, and this definitely challenged me! Thanks to @meggatzabookclub for responding to my random dms when I thought I was too dumb for the book.

While it is spicy - readers may want to check out TW/CW - not all spice is consensual or between our main lovers.

🎧 The audiobook was excellent and the three narrators really helped me to cement my place in the timeline.

This was a dnf for me. However The dnf was not because of the book, but because of me. I think this book was to complicated for me, there are multiple time lines and it was hard for me to keep up and not be confused. This isnt a typical book for me but i was intrigued by the description and cover. This is marketed as a romance but I didn't see it, perhaps ita further on in the book

Thank you netgalley and publisher for the arc

The concept of a three timeline story felt intimidating to me at first, but Justinian Huang does an excellent job of inviting the reader in. Told in a 1-2-3, 1-2-3 repeat, it felt like learning the waltz again in my grandma's living room. Even if I wasn't sure what was happening, I knew I could rely on the count to keep me on track. The build up of each storyline was perfect, as the suspense would build in one, we would get answers to other questions in the next. Not once did I feel the "I don't care about this perspective, how many pages are left?" feeling while reading this WHICH IS A FEAT. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in fantasy, but finds the genre intimidating. The blend of 4 BCE East Asia, 1740s Chinese country villages, and present day LA and Thailand were done so well. The work done to create the atmosphere for the 4 BCE and 1740s timelines was done so well, I don't remember any info dumping and at times it was really easy for me to picture. Each timelines atmosphere felt like an additional character that I was looking forward to. Well done!

"What if I told you...that the feeling we call love...is actually the feeling of metaphysical recognition, when your soul remembers someone from your previous life?"

3.5 -⭐⭐⭐💫

The Emperor and the Endless Palace is an adult fantasy with romance following the the lives of two souls bound together through the consuming nature of love.

In the 1st century bc we follow a courtier seeking to gain status and receive the opportunity to pursue the young emperor. In the 18th century we follow an innkeeper who receives a visitor in desperate need rare medicine. And, finally, in the present day we follow a college medical student who, while exploring his sexuality, find himself drawn to a beautiful stranger that he can't help but believe he has met before.

Okay so I feel this book wasn't marketed well to me and that largely comes from this idea of what I feel romance is. If you are looking for a chance to see how loves conquers all and everything is happy happy joy joy, this will not be what you expect.

Instead, Justinian crafts a rich fantasy world of the nature and obsession love can lead to. I enjoyed how each story build into the other. I like how this story kept me guessing every time. I felt the writing was incredibly easy to fall into and I was able to devour this in one setting. This is one of those books that you really feel like the character as you navigate things. I mean I had some ideas but other I did not anticipate at all but when they all fell together I was satisfied.

The characters in this book are incredibly flawed and you see the impact and consequences it has. I sometimes struggled to like them and I feel like that is the point. I also noted I wished other characters had more of a chance to shine - for example I didn't really get to explore that emperor as much as I wanted; he felt a little one dimensional at times. I also felt the one big twist was interesting but I wish the one character had given us a bit more tension leading up because I didn't get the emotional angst of the moment to make it hit the way it was meant to (but something later down the line did work much better).

This book does contain spice. I would say 3 spicy peppers out of 5 spicy peppers. Honestly the spice is a little cheesy at times and I think it stems from the author recognizing he couldn't use modern day vernacular in the historical period which meant for some interesting new phrases I honestly had never heard to describe a dick. The spice isn't incredibly detailed but it does happen throughout the novel.

Overall, I think this story has a fascinating premise and I liked the message it did ultimately explore. It just isn't my kind of romance and I struggled to support the couples. I would definitely pick up another Justinian Huang book but go in with a different expectation - more fantasy fiction than romance.

Thank you so much Harlequin for the arc!

What a fascinating and well-executed debut! I was impressed by so much of this book - the entirely Asian cast, the alternating POVs, the lush and beautiful worldbuilding. I really enjoyed the adaptation of the legend of the cut sleeve, because as much as I've heard about it over the years, I never really sat down and learned about the history behind the legend. Now I really want to learn more!

I also am not usually the type of person that likes multiple stories being told simultaneously, but the way THE EMPEROR AND THE ENDLESS PALACE pulls it off and ties everything together at the end was extremely well done. The disparate perspectives told in disparate timelines don't make much sense at first, but as the story moves along and you begin to notice the patterns, it's super fun and very rewarding.

This book felt like a warm hug; a nonjudgmental celebration of being queer. More than that, it's a love story that transcends gender in a way I don't usually see written in queer romance - not once did I feel like these two characters were having to justify their love for one another. Definitely mind the tags if you haven't already, because the erotica tag is definitely well-earned! But I am very glad I picked this one up, and can't wait to see it on shelves.

A titillating examination of the intersection between lust and love, definitely more love/revenge story than romance, set against the compelling backdrop of the most effusive gay emperor of the Han dynasty. I'm a sucker for folk tales (especially queer Asian ones, let there be more) and enjoyed the lyrical prose that chronicled the emperor and innkeeper narratives.

My main gripe was that this writing style didn't translate too well to the present-day story, which didn't really feel like it went anywhere or pushed the boundaries of the overall conceit of reincarnation. Can a book have plot twists if it doesn't quite have a plot? I'm not sure, and it felt like the present-day story was building toward a reveal that never happened, perhaps with Calvin.

I still enjoyed the book overall, just more as a character study than as a novel. I'd read more from this author!

This is a mind trip of a story set in three timelines with 3 different men, Dong Xian in 4 BCE a simple but ambitious man, Shican in 1740 an innkeeper who is kind to possibly the wrong person, and River in present day Los Angeles who is newly out and gets caught up in a crazy situation. The connections between the three timelines develop as you read and the characters are not necessarily loveable, but deeply flawed men whose love is complicated.

There is a lot of spiciness of the male/male variety and also a great deal of the characters are acting under the influence (in all three timelines). Because of this, there are several dubious consent situations and a scene where consent is not given (it is interrupted). This book is marketed as romantasy, but I would put it squarely under fantasy with romantic plotlines.

The twists and turns that this story takes is crazy and is not for everyone (but no book is). This book is very much rooted in Chinese myths and history and reads a lot like the epic mind trip movies that came out of China in the 1990's. I really enjoyed it, but I can see that the style of writing is very different than most American/European centric fantasies and could be very off putting for readers. If you like the cultivation genre (xianxia fantasy) books that have been coming out in English recently but wanted something that moved faster, then this book could be for you.

Thank you to Harlequin/MIRA for the review copy, all opinions are my own. My physical copy is on it's way.

This book is truly one of a kind. I can't think of anything else that's like it - reincarnated lovers rooted in the legend of the Cut-Sleeve Emperor mixed with the mythos of fox spirits, plus all the layers that are built on top of the premise. For those looking for a HEA, please be warned: this is not genre romance. The book centers the romance, but it doesn't follow the guiding tenet of the romance genre. The book is bittersweet, as many Sino-based stories are. I appreciate the author for being true to his vision and letting the story be what it is.

That said, I really enjoyed all the drama, the magic, and the historical fantasy vibes. It's not often we get to see the LA gay scene as a setting for fantasy, and the book delivers. I did not think there was too much sex, and I didn't think it was that graphic. The idea of reincarnation, of walking the same paths over and over again, threads through the book, tying the ending back to the beginning. Time is an infinite loop, and so are these two lovers.

Imgur link goes to Instagram graphic scheduled for March 30th (will likely be featured very soon afterwards because of physical pre-order arriving as well)
Blog Post goes love March 27th
Will be featured on March Reads Pt 2

**TL;DR**: No HEA - so perhaps not for everyone but I loved this fantastical romance through the ages.

The Emperor and the Endless Palace is a unique and deeply magical story of two men, trapped in a loop of reincarnation. Over 2000 years they find and loose each other and over the course of this novel we watch them through three lifetimes to find out how and why. There is no HEA here, so for my more traditional romance readers, I don’t recommend going in for one. The ending is bittersweet but also holds promise - I would most definitely read a sequel but I’m also happy with where this ended.

Current day we follow River as he goes out after a one night stand, to a club where he meets Joey. The two have a magnetic attraction, and seem unable to escape each others orbit. Meanwhile we follow two other timelines, two other lives of River and Joey. One is the story of a young man and the Emperor of the Endless Palace in Ancient China, the other is the story of a young fox spirit and an innkeeper in China during the 18th century. These stories always end similarly, with death or loss, but are also filled with love as River and Joey seek, loose, and find each other over the course of our present day story.

I also have to warn that this one is not for the faint of heart. There is a lot of sexual content, very casually. Drug use is common in two timelines, and attempted sexual attempt happens at least once. In addition there is some very graphic infidelity on page which may make others uncomfortable. For all that, I loved this story. Nothing felt wasted or used poorly. Everything served a purpose and was needed for the story. I highly recommend it for my more adventurous romance reading friends, I loved it so much I can’t wait to have my hands on my pre-order.

5 out of 5 peaches

A love so strong it lasts for lifetimes.

The Emperor and the Endless Palace by Justinian Huang is his debut novel and is a twisty love story. This story follows the various lives of a man who inevitably meets the love of his life. Death and being reborn doesn’t stop their love, but is there something that can?

I really like the concept of an endless love that continues over lifetimes! Like, no matter what, you end up finding each other one way or another and it could be in any form. This was my first time reading a MM romance and at some points I couldn’t get into it, but as a whole I liked it.

I don’t think this subgenre of romance is going to be my go to any time soon, but I appreciate a fresh take on romance and relationships. Another thing that stuck out to me and that I loved is the historical aspects. The fact that it’s multiple time periods and they all express not only different times but also places in Asia. That’s always a super fun read!

Sometimes it did get a little confusing while keeping up with each timeline and flipping between them, but as a whole it’s laid out very well.

If you are looking for a MM Asian romantasy that’s super extra spicy, then this is perfect for you! There’s also historical aspects, bipoc characters, multiple timelines, a bit of a thrill and mystery in the mix as well as fated love and mythical creatures.

Other books like it: To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods, The God and the Gumiho

*This was an honest review for a complimentary copy of The Emperor and the Endless Palace from Justinian Huang via NetGalley

Such a beautiful lgbtq romance it pleasantly surprised me! The plot and characters are really likeable and show characters growth I really look forward to the next book