Books by Nghi Vo
Siren Queen
by Nghi Vo
After The Chosen and the Beautiful (see Fantasy 2021), Nghi Vo is back with another mesmerising mashup of historical reference and culture clash, with a heady dose of the supernatural. Doesn’t every American girl want to grow up to be a movie star? Difficult enough in pre-Code Hollywood if your name is Norma Jeane Mortenson, but what if it’s Luli Wei, and you’re a Chinese American from Hungarian Hill? In the phantasmagorical Hollywood of the Siren Queen, the magic resides behind the silver screen, behind the glamorous facade of an industry which works on blood, sweat and tears. Here we are talking about actual blood, human and monstrous, and the screen contracts, Faustian bargains that are signed in blood.
The Chosen and the Beautiful
by Nghi Vo
In The Chosen and the Beautiful Nghi Vo’s reimagining of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the protagonist is a queer, elite-level golfer in a man’s world. She’s also an adopted Asian-American, which imposes glass ceilings and barriers of another kind. Her secret is a form of paper magic that can enchant or destroy.
Interviews where books by Nghi Vo were recommended
The Best Fantasy Books of 2021
What sets fantasy apart from other genres of fiction? Its untethering from reality. In a year like 2021, that will be a welcome feature for many readers out there. If you’re looking for the best fantasy books, 2021 is shaping up to be a vintage year in the genre. However you like your fantasy—epic or short, high or low, dark or comic, contemporary or historical—it’s a great time to be an avid reader in the realms of the imagination.
The Best Fantasy Books of 2022
While in 2022 the escapist impulse remains strong, there is more than solace to find in the pages of the best fantasy books. As Lloyd Alexander has said, “Fantasy is hardly an escape from reality – it’s a way of understanding it.” However you like your fantasy—epic or short, high or low, dark or comic, contemporary or historical—it’s a great time to be an avid reader in the realms of the imagination. Let’s hear it for unreality as a route to the real!
