content warnings: child slavery, murder, violence, drugging, excessive drinking, excessive gambling
representation: all-Asian cast, demisexual Asian protagonist, bisexual Asian protagonist, Asian lesbian main and side characters, f/f side relationship, Asian transgender main character, Asian asexual side character

“She had stared at her reflection in its blade, and in that moment she saw herself in halves: the girl who was still finding her land legs meeting eyes with the one who had sworn vengeance on the man who had ruined her family.

She had vowed to become only the latter.”

Don't mind me, I'm just breaking into your house and refusing to leave until you start reading Tara Sim's books because they truly are the greatest. Two books into A-spec August and two five-stars baby!

Scavenge the Stars is the first of a duology that's a loose, Asian-inspired fantasy, gender-bent retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. If you're not already in based on that then I don't know what to tell you. There are two lead characters: Amaya/Silverfish who has spent the past seven years on a debtor ship and is days away from freedom but makes a seemingly foolish decision to save a drowning man who offers her something better than freedom: revenge. Then there's Cayo, the son of a powerful man in Moray who is trying to support his dying sister after losing most of the family's fortune. Over the course of the novel, their paths begin to intertwine in ways they could have never expected.

I've loved Tara Sim's books ever since reading her debut Timekeeper back in 2016, and I can confidently say that this is my favourite. I'll admit that the first 50 or so pages were slow and difficult to get into, but once it began to pick up it just never stopped. Every chapter would end in a way that made me just have to keep reading, whether it was a cliffhanger or not, which means that I accidentally read almost the entire book in one night. The way Sim's writes is just so compelling and easy to fly through.

I would argue that Sim's greatest strength as a writer is the way she against all odds makes you fall in love with her characters, and this is no exception. Amaya and Cayo almost instantly became two of my favourite characters and stayed that way, even when they would keep making bad choices. I want to focus on Amaya especially because seeing a female YA fantasy protagonist who is ruthless and compassionate and cowardly and kind just really awoke something in me. I didn't just love them as individual characters, though; they have a god tier slow-burn romance. Their romance constantly had me swooning and I truly could not get enough of it.

“Although Cayo had lost the race, he was rewarded all the same by the sound of her short, clear laugh ringing over the water.”

Tara Sim is just continuing to prove how easy it is to include casual diversity. The book is set in an Asian-inspired fantasy world wherein every character is Asian and almost every named character in this is LGBTQ+ ― hell, even a lot of unnamed characters are LGBTQ+. I was kind of astounded with how effortless she makes it, just offhandedly referencing that a character is trans without making it unimportant. Especially when I see so many SFF authors who either don't bother with diversity or do it in the clumsiest way possible.

Comparing this with her other first book, Timekeeper, this is definitely the plottier of the two. Despite only clocking in at just over 300 pages, it seemed like there were constant twists and turns that continued to both delight and surprise me. I know basically nothing about The Count of Monte Cristo ― basically everything I know comes from the TV show Revenge ― so maybe if I knew the original story better some things wouldn't have been such a shock, but as it stands reading this is the most fun I've had figuring out a book's mysteries in a long time.

Honestly, I'm glad I waited half a year to read this because I don't think I would have survived waiting fourteen months for the sequel. I don't know if I'll even survive the seven months I have to wait. Tara Sim continues to impress me and prove why she's one of my favourite authors, delivering on everything you would want out of a gender-bent The Count of Monte Cristo.


08/03/19: I have been murdered, I am literally deceased because of the most beautiful cover I've ever seen, plus this excerpt.


09/10/19: A gender-bent Count of Monte Cristo?? With POC and queer rep?? And a Slytherin girl and Hufflepuff boy?? Written by the author of one of my favourite series?? I have literally never been more hyped for a book in ages.