Shanghai Immortal by A. Y. Chao

Review: Shanghai Immortal by A. Y. Chao

Publication date: June 1st, 2023

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Half vampire. Half fox-spirit. All trouble.

Pawned by her mother to the King of Hell as a child, Lady Jing is half-vampire, half-hulijing fox-spirit and all sasshole. As for the King;s ward, she has spent the past ninety years running errands, dodging the taunts of the spiteful hulijing courtiers, and trying to control her explosive temper - with varying level of success. 

So when Jing overhears the courtiers plotting to steal a priceless dragon pearl from the King, she seizes her chance to expose them, once and for all.

With the help of a gentle mortal tasked with setting up the Central Bank of Hell, Jing embarks on a wild chase for intel, first through Hell and then mortal Shanghai. But when he hijinks put the mortal in danger, she must decided which is more important: avenging her loss of face, or letting go of her half-empty approach to life for a change to experience tenderness- and maybe even love.

I'm a sucker for fantasy. Pun intended

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5 stars

My favourite character hands down was Lady Jing. The sassy personailty. The random outburst of laughter during this book was the reason I found this such an enjoyable read.

I'm all for Romance so the sub-plot was very intriguing to read. The amount of times I looked into space whilst imagining the tiniest moves they would make! There was so much tension and I was here for it all.  When you see Romance you expect a cheesy scene, but you do not have to worry about it here! There is no scene where you want to poke your eyes out for reading it. 

The world-building was great. We get to see both the mortal and immortal Shanghai. As i'm writing this a funny conversation between Mr Lee and Lady Jing pops up into my head.

"I am astounded at how similar Hell looks to Shanghai."

"This is Shanghai." My voice is flat.

Every new location we were put into was well described allowing us to map out the locations in our head. Along the way of this journey we are introduced to many new characters and learn so many new traditional Chinese language, which was great considering I know next to nothing. We meet Jiangshi(Vampires), Hulijing(Fox spirits) and even Dragon! All translations were next to the traditional way of writing which made it much easier to understand. 

This book is for readers who love:

- Fast-pace

- Chinese Mythology

- Adult Fantasy

Shanghai Immortal was one of my best reads so far. A.Y. Chao has now become one of my go-to authors. If you love Chinese Mythology then you NEED this book. 

Thank you Hodderscape for providing a digital Netgalley ARC