Rating: 4 stars

Inspired by the legend of Xishi, one of the famous Four Beauties of Ancient China, A Song to Drown Rivers is an epic historical fantasy about womanhood, war, sacrifice, and love against all odds.

Her beauty hides a deadly purpose. Xishi’s beauty is seen as a blessing to the villagers of Yue—convinced that the best fate for a girl is to marry well and support her family. When Xishi draws the attention of the famous young military advisor, Fanli, he presents her with a rare opportunity: to use her beauty as a weapon. One that could topple the rival neighboring kingdom of Wu, improve the lives of her people, and avenge her sister’s murder. All she has to do is infiltrate the enemy palace as a spy, seduce their immoral king, and weaken them from within.

Trained by Fanli in everything from classical instruments to concealing emotion, Xishi hones her beauty into the perfect blade. But she knows Fanli can see through every deception she masters, the attraction between them burning away any falsehoods.

Once inside the enemy palace, Xishi finds herself under the hungry gaze of the king’s advisors while the king himself shows her great affection. Despite his gentleness, a brutality lurks and Xishi knows she can never let her guard down. But the higher Xishi climbs in the Wu court, the farther she and Fanli have to fall—and if she is unmasked as a traitor, she will bring both kingdoms down.

I received a digital copy of this book through the publisher on NetGalley for an honest review.

A Song to Drown Rivers is a beautifully woven tragedy. From beginning to end, I enjoyed reading Xishi’s story as she went to the Wu kingdom to seduce their king and cause their kingdom to fall. I enjoyed reading about the Wu and Yue kingdoms and getting insight into what her world is like.

As someone who normally doesn’t enjoy historical fiction, I enjoyed this book a lot. I enjoyed Xishi’s character in this story as I felt like as she was learning all she needed to know to survive in the Wu kingdom, she was realizing how powerful her beauty could be. I also felt like as her story went on, she was developing into a wonderful character and someone I wanted to see get the happy ending she deserved.

What I also enjoyed reading this book was seeing Xishi’s relationships with her best friend Zhengdan and the Wu kingdom’s king Fuchai she was to seduce. I loved her friendship with her best friend as Zhengdan was the type of friend if I were in this situation that I’d want by my side. She’s smart, both with her tongue and blade, and their interactions throughout the story were great to read. I definitely found myself sad at how their friendship comes to an end here, but after what happens leading up to it, I also wasn’t all that surprised either as I felt like Xishi was going to experience loss at some point during the story. What I enjoyed about Xishi’s relationship with Fuchai is that there ends up being more to him than expected. In the beginning of A Song to Drown Rivers, Xishi mentions some of the things about the Wu king that she’d heard, and I feel like its discovered that most of what she heard about him isn’t quite true. If anything, I feel like most of the actions he took regarding his kingdom were due to the influence of his advisor Wu Zixu and I felt like he didn’t particularly care about running the Wu kingdom. And I feel like I enjoyed his relationship with Xishi a lot more than her relationship with Fanli as I felt like I could see what all he would do for her to make her happy. I also felt like I could feel his love for her as I was reading this book and I also felt like a part of her cared for him just as much too with how she felt at the end when she realized what would happen as the result of her betrayal. Even though I knew the odds were extremely slim, a part of me actually hoped she’d stay with Fuchai as I felt like they could’ve had a wonderful life together, politics of war aside.

What I didn’t particularly care for in A Song to Drown Rivers was her relationship with Fanli. Her relationship with Fanli didn’t feel all that real to me because I felt like she liked him due to him saving her life at the beginning of the book when they first met. I also just didn’t really see the connection between the two of them as I felt like Fanli was just too calm and serious due to the nature of his job of being the advisor to the Yue king that you rarely see his walls come down or see him express emotion. There are moments here and there where he does, but you don’t really see them often enough. What probably doesn’t help with this is that you don’t see them together enough which I feel like didn’t help me see their connection to each other. I feel like if they had been given more time in the book together, I would’ve had a much easier time seeing their relationship for what it was described to be. Don’t get me wrong, I liked his character. I just didn’t imagine the relationship between them and saw him more like a father figure.

What I also didn’t like was how tragic A Song to Drown Rivers gets. I enjoyed the book overall but wasn’t expecting so much sadness to occur. Though maybe a part of me did expect it when I realized Fuchai wasn’t at all what I expected his character to be like as that had me wondering if there was more going on that as a reader I wasn’t privy to. It made me question Xishi’s mission and whether she should trust the king of her kingdom or if she should stay in the Wu kingdom and stay with Fuchai. I also just felt like none of the characters deserved the fate they were given as I felt like Fuchai and Xishi both deserved a happier ending even if Xishi was with Fanli instead of him.

But in the end, I enjoyed reading A Song to Drown Rivers despite how tragic the story gets and highly recommend it. I consider it one of the best reads I’ve had in 2024 so far and can’t wait for its release in October this year as I definitely want to get my own copy of this book once it’s published.

Thank you for stopping by and reading my review of A Song to Drown Rivers! If you enjoyed my review of this book, don’t hesitate to share your thoughts in the comments below or check out another one of my blog posts.