My Rating: 4 stars
As a result of busy season at work and school starting for me, finding time for leisure reading has been quite difficult the past few weeks. Even so, I was able to squeeze in several ARCs that I had lined up to read in September, which, given the timing, I'm glad I was able to finish.
One of those ARCs is The Phoenix Crown, a new collaborative novel by two popular authors known for writing brilliant historical fiction: Kate Quinn and Janie Chang. I've been excited to read this book since I first heard about it earlier in the year, not only because of the interesting premise, but also because both authors have separately written works that I've loved, so of course, I went into this one with high hopes. And in the end, it definitely did not disappoint.
Despite what the book summary might allude to, the narrative here isn't actually a dual timeline, as majority of the story takes place in 1906 — it is only in the last quarter of the book or so that the story fast forwards 6 years to 1912. While the plot was not as riveting as I expected (a few scenes did feel a tad bit contrived), the historical details were superbly done — of course not a surprise given that both Quinn and Chang are established historical fiction authors. One of the things I enjoyed most though was following the character arcs of the four women at the center of the story, all of whom had distinct personalities as well as fascinating backstories — though the character I would've been most interested in reading more about was Feng Suling, the skilled embroideress who hailed from San Francisco's Chinatown in the aftermath of the Chinese Exclusion Act. The Author's Note at the end of the book is definitely a must-read, as both Quinn and Chang provide quite a bit of historical context for both the characters (several of whom were real people or based on real people) and the various events covered in the story. It was also in the Author's Note that I learned about a reference in the story to Chang's previous novel The Porcelain Moon, which I had read earlier this year and really enjoyed (for me, its always fun to discover throwbacks and references to authors' prior works).
I don't want to say too much, as I don't want to give anything away, so I will just put my name in the hat to recommend reading this (and hope for another future collaboration between these two fantastic authors). One thing to note is that the publication date on this book seems to have changed, as I originally had this as coming out this month (September 2023), but I recently noticed that there is now a finalized publication date in February 2024 (I mention this in case it matters for those interested in reading this one). While waiting for another collaboration, I'm glad that both authors have plenty of works in their own respective oeuvres that I can continue to explore!
Received ARC from William Morrow via NetGalley.
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