Nghi Vo Books In Order

Publication Order of The Chosen and the Beautiful Books

Publication Order of The Singing Hills Cycle Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Into Shadow Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

Nghi Vo is a published American author. She specializes in genres of horror, science fiction, and fantasy.

Vo was born in the central area of the state of Illinois. She enjoys going through corn mazes and has a respect for them along with scarecrows and huge floods. She today resides on Lake Michigan on the shore, a place that is not so much described by the author as a lake as more an ‘inland sea’.

Vo’s fiction has appeared everywhere in quite a few magazines, from Expanded Horizons to Fireside, PodCastle, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons, Uncanny Magazine, Icarus Magazine, and Crossed Genres. She enjoys stories that are all about being on the edge or about things that fall through cracks. She enjoys revolutionary tales, whether they are political in nature or more personal, and anything involving transmutation or transfiguration.

She is an author, story teller, dreamer, and volunteer. She enjoys writing about a variety of things, whether it’s family, love, rhetoric, blood, food, or death. Vo also loves makeup and believes in such things as changing your mind or stories’ power, but also lipstick’s powerful ritual. Her first novel of full length was published in 2020 and is titled The Empress of Salt and Fortune. It is the first in the Singing Hills Cycle series, followed by the sequel, When The Tiger Came Down From The Mountain.

She has also written and had published several short stories. One was published by Long Hidden and is titled “Neither Witch Nor Fairy”. It made it to the 2014 lists, Outstanding Honor List and Tiptree Award Honor List. Wilde Stories 2014 also published her short story “Ghosts of Emerhad”.

Her book Empress tells the story of the rise of an empress and her handmaiden, drawing much of its initial inspiration from history as well as myth. The handmaiden, named Rabbit, and Empress In-yo form much of the tale. It also involves a character named cleric Chih and a bird that can talk, both loving to listen to the stories that Rabbit tells. Vo told the story from the point of view of these outside characters because she wrote them first but also because they gave distance between the present and the empress’s times.

The handmaiden and the empress are both accustomed to their roles and how their status informs how they must be in the world. The empress rose to power, while the path that Rabbit has taken perhaps has not left as many ripples. The relationship is never quite equal or fair due to its nature. However, the two rely on each other and this relationship is very important to each of them.

The writer knew early that this novel would have too much content to be published as a short story. Taking a program on how to write novellas informed her further how she was going to write the book and make the story a little longer. Vo admits that she can write in a way that is compact. This book allowed her to write in a more expressive way and she was happy with the result and how she was able to display some of her world building in this story. In writing this story, Vo hoped that her readers would be reminded that there are stories that reach us every day and that all people tell stories, so to be aware of the stories that we tell and what ones that will be possibly told later about what we have done.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune is the debut fictional novel (or novella, a shorter version of the full length book). This book was one of the most anticipated novels of the year from Paste. Library Journal named it its debut of the month, while spring 2020 saw Buzzfeed calling it the “must-read fantasy novel” of the season. NPR also had praise for this novel, calling it a storytelling of ‘remarkable accomplishment’ as well as subtle, hopeful, unexpected and ferocious.

If you are looking for a book that brings all of the visual feeling of a period drama in Asia, you simply must check out this lush written tale that features strong women characters and a point of view on both storytelling and empire. Check out the novel that Zen Cho saw as strongly felt, elegantly told, full of rich detail and a ‘beautifully’ realized miniature epic.

A young woman that also happens to be a royal has an intriguing journey ahead of her. She is going south to engage in a marriage that is political in nature, for an empire that resembles imperial China. When it comes to her family, her brothers have passed. The armies and the war mammoths have been long gone, defeated, with the mammoths kept behind the borders.

The empress is all on her own. Since she is alone and does have her fair share of enemies, she must make allies, choosing all of them with care. Meanwhile, Rabbit has been sold to the palace as a handmaiden courtesy of her parents. The would-be empress is now an empress officially. Rabbit makes friends with the empress, who is lonely, and immediately finds that she is in over her head.

So the reader follows along with Empress In-yo’s ascension. She must discover her own friends and allies on this path, as well as resources. A daughter of the north, she will find her own place in this exile. Will she take down her enemies and make history as she intends? Read this exciting book from Nghi Vo to find out!

When The Tiger Came Down From The Mountain is the second novel in the Singing Hills Cycle series of fiction by Nghi Vo. In this engaging sequel, the reader comes back to the Ahn empire.

When a cleric named Chih lands in a difficult position, he doesn’t know what to do. He’s with his companions when they come across a group of tigers in the wild that are clearly hungry.

Chih knows that if he can just survive long enough, the mammoths will be able to come in and save the day. Chih must get to the bottom of the story of a scholar lover and a tiger to figure out if truth can make it without becoming history. Will they be eaten? Read this exciting sequel to the end to discover what happens!