2.5-3 stars

I received an e-copy of this book from Pan Macmillan in exchange for an honest review.

The Phoenix Empress is the sequel to The Tiger's Daughter - an expansive fantasy novel in which readers are first introduced to Quorin warrior Barsalyya Shefali, and her best friend, wife, and Empress O Shizuka.

In The Phoenix Empress, we finally learn what happened to O Shizuka in the eight years she and Shefali were separated after Shefali was banished by Shizuka's uncle, the Emperor. I really wanted to love this book as I really enjoyed The Tiger's Daughter but for some reason, it just felt really flat for me. The book seemed too long, and it took ages before readers were actually told the full story about Shizuka's time without Shefali. I also personally grew really tired of Shefali's all-consuming love for Shizuka. It seemed too much at times, and she seemed blind to a lot of the characters obvious flaws. I also wasn't really happy with Shizuka becoming an alcoholic after Ink-On-Water, as it just seemed a lazy plot point for me.

I d really enjoy the flowery writing in this book, and some of the descriptions are truly beautiful. This is a world that seems to have so much beauty to it but also one that's full of darkness and violence and I really enjoyed he contrast, especially the imagery of Shizuka building a wall of flowers to fight a horde of demons. I would really like to know more about the gods of this world and how it all work s- there's times I feel like we are just told that our characters are Gods, or believe themselves to be so, but we're not shown how that could be properly. Some of the names of the different Gods confused me too, as they aren't gods we already know of (such as if this was somehow based on Greek or Roman myths). I find Shefali a lot more compelling character than Shizuka so this might be why I didn't like this one as much, as it focused on the Empress more so than my favourite Quorin.