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Book: “Immortal” Sue Lynn Tan
Publishing Info: Harper Voyager, January 2025
Where Did I Get this Book: ARC from the publisher!
Where Can You Get this Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | IndieBound
Book Description: As the heir to Tianxia, Liyen knows she must ascend the throne and renew her kingdom’s pledge to serve the immortals who once protected them from a vicious enemy. But when she is poisoned, Liyen’s grandfather steals an enchanted lotus to save her life. Enraged at his betrayal, the immortal queen commands the powerful God of War to attack Tianxia.
Upon her grandfather’s death, Liyen ascends a precarious throne, vowing to end her kingdom’s obligation to the immortals. When she is summoned to the Immortal Realm, she seizes the opportunity to learn their secrets and to form a tenuous alliance to safeguard her people, all with the one she should fear and mistrust the most: the ruthless God of War. As they are drawn together, a treacherous attraction ignites between them—one she has to resist, to not endanger all she is fighting for.
But with darker forces closing in around them, and her kingdom plunged into peril, Liyen must risk everything to save her people from an unspeakable fate, even if it means forging a dangerous bond with the immortal… even if it means losing her heart.
Review: While I haven’t read “Daughter of the Moon Goddess” yet, it’s been on my TBR pile for a while due to the fairly universal acclaim it was met with. That being the case, I was excited to see a stand-alone book coming out by this author this winter that I could use as a dip into this world without committing to the original duology. This can be a bit of a hit or miss plan, however, as there are only a few authors I can name who seem to produce books at the same quality level every time. Others (the normal people, one might say) will often have stronger and weaker entries in their output.
You may have guessed, from this hedging right out of the gate that I didn’t love this one as much as I had hoped. But, per above hedging, I’m still hoping to give the original duology a shot, as the author has some clear strengths that maybe just didn’t come together for this particular book. So let’s start with those positives! For one thing, I think the writing was fairly strong throughout. There was a blessed refrain from modern lingo or overly “quippy” dialogue between characters. The world was described using lush language, so much so that I think it was these descriptive moments that were the true high points of the book. However, even here, as the story continued, I felt as if I was wanting more, with some of these world-building elements and larger plot points seeming to subside beneath the weak romance at the stories heart.
As readers of this blog know, I’m a character reader. You write a great character, and I’m willing to ignore numerous other potential flaws in a book. However, the inverse is also true, where it doesn’t matter how great your world is, how high the stakes of the plot may be…if your main characters don’t hit, I’m probably going to end up not enjoying the book. And that was the biggest problem here. The book starts with a scene that is clearly meant to establish much about Liyen’s character, giving the reader the starting point to become invested in her and her travails. However, I don’t think this event really hit as hard as it needed to (I had just met most of these characters and this world, so I didn’t really care too much about any of these players.) And then Liyen was written in such a way that even if this event had worked, it would have needed to be much more powerful to combat the sheer annoyance and frustration I felt reading from Liyen’s perspective. The best I can say is that this is a very familiar character: plucky heroine who learns she’s all powerful! And, given how often I run across this protagonist, I guess there are a decent number of readers for whom that may be enough. But readers who do enjoy this character type deserve more. More of an effort to create some original and less “paint by numbers.”
The love interest was the same. Yet again, we get a dark and brooding hero who (surprise!) turns out to be misunderstood and who harbors a heart of gold. Worse, he and Liyen seem to fall almost immediately in love (seriously, I think it was around the 1/3 mark of the book that their feelings began to really take hold). And, while the book wasn’t overly quippy, there were enough cheesy proclamations of devotion (especially the ones that came early) to have me rolling my eyes. I enjoy romance, so I can get behind speeches of passion. But I have to buy it! And I didn’t here. And then, as I continued reading, the author threw in a twist towards the end that seemingly retroactively explains their instant connection. But honestly, this was the insult that really broke the experience for me. All this twist told me was that the author understood how ridiculous the characters’ love story was and that she plopped in this explanation towards the end to somehow make the entire thing plausible. Which just feels lazy. Again, romantasy readers deserve better than this.
So, I know that this got rant-y towards the end. But I think part of the problem was how much potential I saw in the general quality of the prose writing and the interesting world-building. To have all of that going for the book, and to then people it with these generic lead characters whom we’ve all read before and who fall in love immediately for no good reason (other than an obviously contrived reason given towards the end), was very frustrating. All of this said, I do still plan on giving the original duology a chance. For one thing, the fact that it is a duology and not a stand-alone book gives me hope that the romance plays out in a more extended manner. Fans of the original duology might want to check this one out, and if you’re unbothered by instalove, then definitely give it a go! But if you’re looking for something that feels fresh or pushes the boundaries at all, this probably isn’t it.
Rating 7: An interesting world and some lush prose was undone by the same lead characters we’ve read a million times before in romantasy fiction.
Reader’s Advisory:
“Immortal” can be found on these Goodreads lists: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Fantasy and 2025 Fantasy Novels.
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