Thank you to the hive my fav place to be to get ARCs!

Lucky Seed is crazy rich asians but like richer and crazier. This book is literally about the race for one of the grandkids to have a male son except no one actually wants one? Maybe? I laughed a lot, the book is very absurd, but also very cool to see the family dynamics and how they play out with love, sex, drugs, and money being the big factors at play. I loved the discussion of matriarch vs. patriarch and I definitely think I would recommend this to a lot of my friends!

Thank god for the family tree or else I would have been utterly lost! I did restart the beginning 3x 🫠

5/5 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Lucky Seed
Author: Justinian Huang

Thank you Netgalley and Harlequin Trade Publishing for my ARC! You are all going to want to get your hands on this one. I friggin love Justinian Huang. We met at Steamy Lit last year after I heard him speak on one of the panels. I loved his first fantasy book, The Emperor and the Endless Palace (and I hope we are getting more from that world) so I was super eager to read his upcoming release. This one was more of a family drama read and IT WAS SO FRIGGIN GOOD! The rich and powerful Sun Clan of LA is about to meet their doom since the matriarch has failed to produce a male heir. She decides to put her faith in her son Wayward to produce the heir. When the other family members find out about this plan, chaos ensues. There were so many characters involved but each one had their own unique role to play and I loved all of them. They were all super unhinged. I especially loved our chapters from the dog’s perspective. I can just feel Justinian’s energy in his books. I was hooked until the very end. What a fun ride. This is a perfect November release.

This book was so incredible! This was my first book by this author but the book was so funny and insightful we got such a full picture of each character and why they are the way they are and it was great.

“Lucky Seed” by Justinian Huang is a sharp, funny, and heartfelt family saga where Succession meets Crazy Rich Asians. Huang delivers drama, humor, and emotional depth in a page-turner you won’t want to put down.

Huge thank to the Publisher and Net Galley for the ARC, in exchange for a fair and honest review.

I loved Huang’s debut, and his sophomore effort didn’t disappoint. This is a WILD RIDE of a family drama. Generational trauma, betrayal, and all the juicy tropes of a telenovela are put to use here. However, the messages that emerge at the end are truly important and timely.

The author takes his times with unraveling characters’ backstories so that there is no overwhelming download of information. The cast is pretty large, but the stories are engaging and the characters feel real. In fact, I imagine most of these characters have real life counterparts inspiring them. For all the drama and scheming, the characters react in very human ways which keep the plot moving forward without feeling forced.

By half way through, the story really locks in and I couldn’t stop reading. I’m not sure all the clues are in the story just waiting for the reader to fit them together. This isn’t a Christie style whodunnit. The fun for me was having pieces filled in slowly and out of order, so that even when I knew most of what was happening I was still motivated to read on and figure out “why??”

There are no perfect victims or evil monsters here. Just a cast of characters who are informed by their background and privilege. The novel is fun, fast paced and observant in its themes.

While I enjoyed this book overall, I found it a bit convoluted and over-the-top. The twists and turns were slightly too twisted, but it definitely made for a fun read.

🍦 🍓 The Ripped Bodice's 9th Annual Summer Romance Bingo 🕶️ 🏄🏼

/ Rival Teams

Part One: But Who Will Feed the Hungry Ghosts?

God, this is messy. I've loved every second.

What kind of name is Roses? We've got an Asian Galahad? This is obnoxious. I am obnoxious. I am obsessed.

The only thing I don't love is the collection of pitbulls, but I'm probably the only person in LA that doesn't like dogs.

Part Two: Same Dream, Different Beds

I spoke too soon. There is a woman of Chinese descent unironically named Chinoiserie. I have ascended.

Galahad is a sketchy MF-er. Not that the rest of the cast is better.

I truly love the nice neighborhood name-dropping: Malibu, Manhattan Beach, and San Marino. And then there's Cristiano from Gardena.

Part Three: ¡Concepción!

I thought I was getting bored in this part, but the ending saved it. Reveal after reveal after reveal. It would be too much if I wasn't so knee-deep in the drama. I want to swim in it. I want to drown in it. I wouldn't be opposed to one of them drowning, actually.

Part Four: he/him/his

This section title makes 100% more sense now. Don't worry about it. I won't be spoiling anything.

But if the beginning of this book was real, and the middle got a little crazier, the end is definitely the craziest. Rich people are the worst, but reading about them is the best. This will stick with me for a while.

Book pairings: COUNTERFEIT | CRAZY RICH ASIANS | LAST TANG STANDING

TV pairings: BLING EMPIRE | CINDERELLA AND THE FOUR KNIGHTS

📱 Thank you to NetGalley and MIRA

This billionaire Chinese clan living in Los Angeles seems to exist outside of American contemporary norms re family and relationships. They still keep to the ancestral notion of hereditary privilege for males in a family, for instance. As a result, the children and grandchildren vie for prominence, as they are almost all females, except for two of the grandchidren - one is gay and the other a profligate. The matriarch, Roses, chooses the gay grandson Wayward as the heir to the family business and the family fortune.

Others on the sidelines, notably the granddaughter of Roses only son, George, plot to take control. Everyone has plans to suddenly produce a son to challenge Roses's decision.

Intriguing in its family complexity, sometimes humorous, this was an enjoyable read and look into the complex, machinations of a Chinese clan.

Wow - this book just got right into it with tons of POVs of everyone in the family but that's good - I LOVED IT. And it helps you get to know everyone right away. all leading up to this pure bloodline son thing for the inheritance fight. I liked everyone's distinct personalities and the family dynamics. Great way to distinguish everyone so they're all super separate people. The only thing I didn't believe was April suddenly owning her own company. Her major goal in life only seemed to be getting high so I didn't have high hopes for her. She was just kind of whiny. But loved everyone else in this family. And thanks for the family tree - that was helpful. The book did a good job ox explaining who was related to who but it did get kind of confusing sometimes.

So good it’s giving crazy rich Asian that was one of my favorite books !! So this one did not disappoint me it was a great book about family secrets and drama a page turner and very relatable when it come to family

I have read many books this year, but Justinian Huang’s “Lucky Seed” stands out as my most entertaining read. Described as a mix between “Succession” and “Crazy Rich Asians,” this novel truly lives up to that comparison. I genuinely hope it makes it to the big screen someday.

The story revolves around a race to produce a male heir by any means necessary, and as quickly as possible, to maintain control of SunFang Global and its associated trust. Additionally, there is the Chinese cultural belief about avoiding hungry ghosts in the afterlife.

The characters come from the Sun and Fang families, and although there are many of them—and even a family tree is provided—I didn't feel the need to reference it. Each character is distinct, making it easy to follow along. This book is packed with humor, action, hijinks, and untrustworthy (but likeable) characters—plus some LGBTQIA+ and Asian American representation.

As a fan of Huang's previous work, I was genuinely surprised by how good this book is. Huang keeps getting better and better. "Lucky Seed" is now in my top ten list for 2025. I have recommended it to my friends and would suggest it to anyone looking for an enjoyable and super suspenseful read. It will keep you guessing but not stressful you out. A big thank you to Harlequin Trade Publishing | MIRA and NetGalley for providing the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

In this book it took me a little while to get into it, but then I was starting to get interested in the characters and the somewhat mystery within Lucky Seed. However, even though I read lots of romance and other fiction it seemed a bit much with the sex scenes. Also, all of a sudden the narrator and point of view completely changes to the point of oddities and don't want to give anything away, but I just didn't want to really read any further.

The Emperor and the Endless Palace was, by far and away, my favorite book of 2024. You can imagine, then, my excitement when I found out that Justinian Huang had a second book coming out in 2025. When I saw a social media post that ARCs were out, my little fingers (they’re not actually little, which you all know if you follow me in IG because I complain every five minutes about how big my hands are and yet, they’re not big enough to have the same reach as Freddie Mercury’s so playing Queen on the piano is just hard enough to be annoying and why can’t my hands just pick already) raced to NetGalley to smash “request” and lo, I forgot that Mira was Huang’s publisher and I am auto-approved for Harlequin so I instead I smashed mine and did shrieked for a while.

I know it’s only July-ish but I can assure you that Lucky Seed is going to be in my top five of 2025, most likely my top 3, and it Huang may very well be at #1 again (it’s going to be very had to dethrone). The best way I can think of to describe the vibe is Dallas/Dynasty x Kinn/Porsche (I was going to say The Godfather but Sunbern is so Tankhun coded and Galahad reminded me a little of Vegas trying to pull Porsche… I could go on but I won’t because Lucky Seed is very much original and it’s own thing but there were some parallels that made me giggle in reminiscence).

There is so much in this book and I’m struggling to talk about how amazing it is without giving too much away because I want everyone to have the experience of reading it for the first time. It manages to be epic while also being about individual people, the history of a family and also about what the individual members of that family want and hope for and dream about. It’s about generational curses and the way they shift as they’re passed down, the way they warp each successive generation and its members differently and how much energy and it takes, and pain it causes, to truly break them. It’s about who you hold close and who you can trust. It’s about how difficult it is to really, truly walk away and how hard it is to stay. About getting what you think you want. About real active truth and actual truth and the lies we tell ourselves to make it through the day and to make it through life and what happens when we stop. About the little lies we forgot we told until the blow up in our faces. It’s about all the things that go into making family.

And it’s hopeful and funny. So funny. So fucking funny. Intriguing and honest and dark and tarnished and there are dogs which is how we know that there’s good in most of the people in this book and also how we know who’s beyond redemption. Lucky Seed is so real despite the scale being massive. I’m always in awe of writers who can plot and execute a story at such a massive scale and, somehow, keep it so personal and so human, the way that Huang has done in both of his novels so far, the first across time, and in this one across time, space, and cast of characters.

I guess “in awe” is the takeaway here. Highly recommend. Pre-order. Poke the library. Yell at your local bookstore. Do all the things. Read Lucky Seed. And if you haven’t read The Emperor and the Endless Palace yet, do that while you’re waiting. It’s a Stonewall Honor book. Those are important right now