This was so beautiful!

The prose is gorgeous and the writing style of the author truly captivates the reader, not only with the imagery but also the character's very essence. We see two adult women who have seen horrors in their lives—horrors caused by others and horrors they caused themselves onto others. I found Rosa and Hou Yi so interesting because they're flawed characters. One might even call them villains or antagonists. These are two women who have done horrible mistakes, and throughout the story (their journey and their backstories shared between them), we get to see how it affected them and the lives of the people around them.

I also love how there are multiple fairy tale retellings here. I feel like the author really gave these fairy tales new, dark twists and was able to incorporate morality and human sins in each one of them at the same time.

I do wish there's more to the world-building. From what I've garnered here, it's so magical and fascinating. I needed more of it. (It's quite understandable though, since this is only a novella.)

There's not much a high stakes plot here, but instead we see an exquisite story about family, regret, and redemption.

OH, AND THIS IS SAPPHIC! There are two sapphic couples here and I loved it. And of course, we have Asian and Latinx rep. I've heard that this is inspired by Chinese mythology and that's always nice to see!

(I received an e-arc of this via NetGalley! Thank you so much Tor.com!)

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