May 30, 2022
Chen’s searing duology-opening debut introduces 18-year-old Violet Lune, one of nine known Seers who has prophetic dreams and can glimpse people’s pasts and futures by holding their hands. As a child, Violet used her Sight to avert the death of Auveny Kingdom’s Prince Cyrus, an act that elevated her from living in the streets to being King Emilius’s official Seer. Now she manipulates public opinion by delivering carefully worded predictions, many of which Emilius fabricates. Following the king’s previous Seer’s unfinished final missive—which prophesied a curse, a war, and Cyrus and his bride’s potential to ruin or save Auveny—Violet is unable to See the end of the prophecy. But Cyrus, 19, remains unmarried, and the kingdom is getting anxious. Per Emilius’s orders, Violet foretells a politically advantageous match with neighboring leader Raya. Shortly thereafter, however, attraction sparks between Violet and Cyrus, and to further complicate matters, Violet has a vision warning that Cyrus must die, or Violet will burn. Employing evocative prose, passionately antagonistic romance, and a snarky first-person narration, Chen borrows familiar fairy tale elements and crafts them into a uniquely dark fantasy. Cyrus is white; Violet cues as Asian; Raya has brown skin. Ages 14–up. Agent: Elana Roth Parker, Laura Dail Literary.
May 15, 2022
A disillusioned seer and a privileged prince: the stuff of fairy tales. After an encounter with the prince and princess of Auveny, 18-year-old Violet Lune is plucked from the slums and brought to the palace, where she quickly becomes the kingdom's new Seer. Taken under the wing of King Emilius, she becomes a favorite at court and eventually a trusted player in the king's schemes, often setting her at odds with his son, Prince Cyrus. With a curse threatening both Cyrus' life and the kingdom's future, there is more scheming than ever before: Violet must maintain her precarious position as Seer, doing the king's bidding and sorting out her constant feuding with Cyrus. At the same time, her dreams are becoming stranger: Ultimately, fate may force her to choose between the prince and herself. As the kingdom is threatened from within and without, with beasts massing on the borders and internal instability, everything comes down to the heart of the prince and the unlikely girl who might claim it. Chen draws pleasingly upon fairy-tale motifs, juxtaposing the rosy glow of stories with the real possibility of ugly, mundane realities. The Kingdom of Auveny evokes medieval Europe; Violet's mother was exiled from the Kingdom of Yuenen, which is coded as a fantasy-world equivalent of China, making for a refreshing change from typical high-fantasy settings. Deeper worldbuilding and explorations of certain characters' motivations would have expanded the story beyond the central romance. Diverting and atmospheric. (map) (Fantasy. 14-18)
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December 9, 2022
Gr 9 Up-Eighteen-year-old Violet Lune is one of only nine Seers remaining in the world. After one of her visions saved the life of Prince Cyrus, she was lifted into the royal court to help King Emilius with carefully worded predictions of the future. Prince Cyrus, as a frequent victim of his father's manipulations, has no respect for Violet or her visions-but he is the subject of a well-known curse that could throw his kingdom into ruin. His return to the capital without a bride has put everything in jeopardy, as her dreams and visions become more alarming. Cyrus sets himself at odds with Violet and her role in the royal court, even as circumstances draw them closer together. The kingdom will rise or fall based on his love life, and Violet finds herself an integral part of it. The enemies-to-lovers romance ties neatly into the political intrigue, as Violet works to control her power and maintain her place at court, but ultimately romance is the only thing holding the story together. Characterizations and worldbuilding lack the nuance needed to carry the intrigue to a thrilling conclusion, leaving the sequel to pick up many loose ends. There is some racial diversity, with Violet's mother hailing from an Asian-coded country. VERDICT Atmospheric and steamy, Chen's debut is a secondary purchase for libraries where Shelby Mahurin's Serpent & Dove has been popular.-Emmy Neal
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March 10, 2023
Grades 10-12 As the last Seer of Auveny died, she uttered a prophecy that marked the next King--Prince Cyrus--as both terribly cursed and as the land's only hope of peace. It's a vision that the next Seer, Violet, one of only nine in the world, hasn't foreseen, but her people don't know that: Violet tends to lie about her prophecies and dreams. She has predicted that the Prince will find a bride soon--a prophecy she stole from part of the original prophet's last words--but he remains unwed. When Violet dreams of the Fates giving her an ultimatum--that the prince must die, or she will--she chalks it up to a hallucination. But the closer she gets to the end of summer, the more it seems like this prophecy may actually be true, and that the Fates may be real after all. Violet's slow-burning enemies-to-lovers relationship with Cyrus only complicates matters. Debut author Chen has a winner here, with a rough-around-the-edges protagonist that readers will eventually root for despite her thorns.
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