Burning Roses was an impulse borrow from the library. My wife brought it home one day as a surprise, and reading the blurb resulted in much squee and happy cooing.

After fleeing her homeland, Rosa drops on Hou Yi’s doorstep in exhaustion. While Hou Yi nurses Rosa back to health, the two women realize they’re both running from dark deeds in their pasts. They form a companionable alliance, until the heavy peace shatters at the news of sunbirds’ attack. Hou Yi and Rosa set out to protect the common folk from these deadly beasts, but the journey demands they confront their fraught pasts.

That little summary might seem vague, but any more details would venture into spoiler territory. Huang tells a tight tale, with seeming innocuous details having huge ramifications. The beginning is A Lot, especially with characters so avoidant of their issues. Stick with it. To throw you a life raft, this world is like Shrek’s where folklore meanders together, and one person can fulfill various roles. Rest assured, the interweaving of Western fairy tales and Chinese mythology, the badass older, queer women protags, and the HEA are very worth the initial struggle to swim. Huang deftly intertwines culture and language in fascinating ways. I’m unfamiliar with Chinese myths, so the novella was quite tense, but the ending all the sweeter.

Bursting with justice, revenge, redemption and family, Burning Roses is a beautiful little book. I didn’t know it was part of a series before reading the back matter, and I’m excited that there’s more!