Song of the Six Realms

By: Judy I. Lin

Narrated by: Jen Zhao

Judy I. Lin, #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Magic Steeped in Poison, weaves a dreamy gothic romance worthy of the heavens in Song of the Six Realms.

Xue, a talented young musician, has no past and probably no future. Orphaned at a young age, her kindly poet uncle took her in and arranged for an apprenticeship at one of the most esteemed entertainment houses in the kingdom. She doesn’t remember much from before entering the House of Flowing Water, and when her uncle is suddenly killed in a bandit attack, she is devastated to lose her last connection to a life outside of her indenture contract.

With no family and no patron, Xue is facing the possibility of a lifetime of servitude playing the qin for nobles that praise her talent with one breath and sneer at her lowly social status with the next. Then one night she is unexpectedly called to the garden to put on a private performance for the enigmatic Duke Meng. The young man is strangely kind and awkward for nobility, and surprises Xue further with an irresistible offer: serve as a musician in residence at his manor for one year, and he’ll set her free of her indenture.

But the Duke’s motives become increasingly more suspect when he and Xue barely survive an attack by a nightmarish monster, and when he whisks her away to his estate, she discovers he’s not just some country noble: He’s the Duke of Dreams, one of the divine rulers of the Celestial Realm. There she learns the Six Realms are on the brink of disaster, and incursions by demonic beasts are growing more frequent.

The Duke needs Xue’s help to unlock memories from her past that could hold the answers to how to stop the impending war… but first Xue will need to survive being the target of every monster and deity in the Six Realms.

Beautiful!

This story is so beautiful! The descriptions transport you to a glorious place and tug at your heartstrings. What a compelling love story!

The ending is not for me

I found Song of the Six Realms to be a bit confusing. I assure you; I liked the book but at times the plot seemed a bit convoluted, like the author herself did not know which direction she wanted to go. I can’t give exact examples without spoiling the ending. I also want to point out the book is marketed as a gothic romance and I do not see at all where the ‘gothic’ comes into play. At the root of it, Song of the Six Realms is a story about a young woman being whisked away by a young duke to play the Qin in his home only to learn that things are not what they appear. You see, the duke is actually a god and he needs Xue’s help to free his father from prison. The dissonance within the Celestial Realm only grows leading to kidnapping, murder attempts, and open hostility to from other characters.

I absolutely adore the characters as they have such varying personalities. You love some, you have some... You have those you trust and others you distrust, and all of them earn how the reader grows to view them. For example, there is a character who from the moment they appear on the pages until their final mention, they are hostile and abusive towards Xue. It is easy to hate and distrust them as they are just an awful person. Likewise, there are others that off the bat you just have good feelings towards, like Xue’s uncle who is nothing but kind to Xue and does everything he can to protect her.

As far as world building goes, I do wish there was a bit more there. I really enjoyed the moments of lore that we got as snippets from the books Xue was reading during the Interludes. It was fascinating to learn about the division of the realms, the history of how the different realms work, and how things came to be. Those were my favorite moments of the story.

One of the things that made me the most upset is the ending. I don’t like cliffhangers in series, but it frustrates me more when there is a cliffhanger/open ending on standalone novels. Sadly, because I don’t want to spoil some of the most important parts of the story, I must explain this in the most awkward vague way... Someone dies at the end but they aren’t dead because something is in someone’s possession that would disappear if the dead person ceased to exist. As there is no sequel however, there is no way to know or not if the person is dead or alive or if they ever return to the others. It is not the happy ending I expected.

A BEAUTIFULLY WOVEN TALE

I was enchanted by this story and its narration was equally captivating. it makes for a lovely bedtime story steeped in Chinese lore and magic. I have listened to it there times and will likely do so a few more times over the years.