Hi friends and happy Friday! I hope you’re all doing well. Today I’m posting my review of Julie C. Dao’s novel, Forest of a Thousand Laterns.

Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by: Julie C. Dao: Xifeng is beautiful, but has grown up in a peasant town no one remembers where she longs to fulfill her destiny that has been promised to her from her cruel aunt who reads it in the cards. Her destiny is to be Empress of Feng Fu, but to get there she must hurt the one she loves and take full advantage of the dark magic that runs through her. The price is high; will she be willing to pay them all. For a first novel in a trilogy, this was pretty good; it wasn’t earth shattering to this reader. The pacing felt off for the most part. It started slow, then sped up really quickly and the reader felt like there wasn’t enough of a transition from one point in time to another. The journey that the main character went through was really interesting and captivating. Where she started to where she ended were completely opposite from each other, which made her journey that much more absorbing. The characters were developed just enough for us to want more from them; they all had these complexities to them that were just on the cusp of being grown out. Hopefully in the next few novels we’ll get to see more of their growth and development. Our main character was so fascinating because one minute you wanted to root for her, then the next you questioned whether you should root for her, so it was a great complex and one we can’t wait to explore more. As for the plot, it read well and fast; it was easy to fall into the story and the descriptions that Dao wrote were beautiful, totally had the reader into the story. Overall, an intriguing first novel with great writing and creative plots and we can’t wait to see what follows.