Welcome Readers!
This month the Online Reading Challenge is focusing on fantasy. Our main title for October is She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker Chan. Here’s a quick summary from the publisher:
To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything
“I refuse to be nothing…”
In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…
In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.
When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother’s identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.
After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother’s abandoned greatness. – Tor Books
Looking for some other fantasy titles? Try any of the following.
- The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde
- Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
- The Book of Doors by Gareth Brown
- Circe by Madeline Miller
- The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo
- The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by Victoria Schwab
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang
- A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang
As always, check each of our locations for displays with lots more titles to choose from!