The story is a fictional memoir written by legendary Chinese American actress Luli Wei. It juxtaposes navigating golden era Hollywood, with its problematic studio system and harsh racial and gender biases, with in-world magical realism.

Here women must stick together to survive faerie-esque contracts and reclaim what agency they can from creatures they are ultimately trying to emulate. Each actress seems to be waiting for her own meteoric rise to the heavens, her own clutch of adoring fans at her altar.

Beneath the glamorous surface is a very real look at life as a marginalized woman in this era. Luli Wei unabashedly details her queer awakening and a string of sapphic romances, she reflects on what it means to be a monster and whether the moniker is one worth shedding, she finds her own way through a system determined to chew her up and spit her out.

Siren Queen is violent and wistful and queer and it doesn’t apologize for any of it. It cemented Nghi Vo as one of my favorite authors, for sure.