Pages: 544
Published: 26th September 2023
Genre: Historical Science Fiction/Fantasy
Content warnings: Violence, injury detail
Winter is drawing thick in 1932 Shanghai, as is the ever-nearing threat of a Japanese invasion.
Rosalind Lang has suffered the worst possible fate for a national spy: she’s been exposed. With the media storm camped outside her apartment for the infamous Lady Fortune, she’s barely left her bedroom in weeks, plotting her next course of action after Orion was taken and his memories of Rosalind wiped. Though their marriage might have been a sham, his absence hurts her more than any physical wound. She won’t rest until she gets him back.
But with her identity in the open, the task is near impossible. The only way to leave the city and rescue Orion is under the guise of a national tour. It’s easy to convince her superiors that the countryside needs unity more than ever, and who better than an immortal girl to stir pride and strength into the people?
When the tour goes wrong, however, everything Rosalind once knew is thrown up in the air. Taking refuge outside Shanghai, old ghosts come into the open and adversaries turn to allies. To save Orion, they must find a cure to his mother’s traitorous invention and take this dangerous chemical weapon away from impending foreign invasion – but the clock is ticking, and if Rosalind fails, it’s not only Orion she loses, but her nation itself.
This concluding half of Chloe Gong’s second epic Secret Shanghai duology is nothing short of a total masterclass in how to balance all the moving plates of a complex plot and keep them spinning steadily while building to a dramatic final act. An endlessly gripping and intense story with characters that burn their way into your mind and live in a setting with palpable tumult, there is never any let up in the suspense or the high stakes and it ultimately delivers the goods in almost every way.
After the bombshell of a twist that happened at the end of Foul Lady Fortune, and the final page reveal regarding the identity of Priest, there was always going to be a subtly different atmosphere to this one. It would still be laced with urgency and foreboding on every page, but with Rosalind’s cover blown and the state of play now changed, the sense of danger now was even more omnipresent, the depths of conspiracy more apparent, and romantic tension increasingly acute for each of the main characters.
It feels impossible to overstate just how and unbelievably clever and multifaceted this historical yet ever so slightly fantastical world is that Chloe Gong has created, and once again it is so much in evidence here. It straddles a host of different genres at once, immersing us in a multicultural city where several languages are spoken yet is in the midst of bloody political divisions and is braced for the imminent outbreak of war. All of these real-life events are spun into the narrative and act as an integral backdrop for all the science fiction elements, and not once do you feel removed from any of it. On top of all that, it is also a retelling of Shakespeare. In terms of context and general execution, it is hard to find the necessary superlatives.
The plotting is usually methodical rather than slow, and this particular book is no different. There is always menace, always fascinating character dynamics at play, always something to move the story along. There is a lot of build-up, every piece carefully curated and crafted as they fall into place, keeping us on the edge of our seat while setting the scene for a showdown at the end where the future of the city is on the line and everything is laid bare for all our protagonists.
As the chapters switch frequently between the missions of different characters, there are some gripping moments to be had. Rosalind’s national tour is an inspired idea and that brings both the heartbreak of Orion’s damaged state and the awareness of an ongoing threat to her life at the hands of a near-immortal army. The fate of her elusive handler Dao Feng adds even further tension to that. Then we have the irresistible game of cat and mouse between Silas and Phoebe which itself is building towards a revelation. Indeed, Phoebe has a lot of the very best scenes, and a special mention has to go to the part when she finds her mother’s thesis at the library.
We also take a detour from Shanghai to the rather more secluded surroundings of Zhaozhuang, where Rosalind is faced with ghosts from her past. The returning heroes make a spectacular entrance at the end of a thrilling chase scene and they are very much a part of the story, but in side-lining them for the final battle at the end Gong makes a bold creative decision. It is also absolutely the right one, as this duology belongs to Rosalind.
And that whole series of events towards the end is utterly worth the wait, full of breathtaking action along with great character moments like Phoebe confronting her mother, Oliver making a sacrifice, and Rosalind more powerful and yet more vulnerable than ever as she aims to take down the operation that threatens to tear her city apart. It is a long and intense set of chapters, but you hang on to every word and live every second of it.
Inextricably linked with the plot are the relationships between the characters, with all three of the main storylines having a degree of romance – although in each case it is more a case of them having to confront their feelings rather than outward declarations of love. All of these threads are similar in their own way but also a little bit different, and some work better than others.
Easily the most successful is the extraordinary dynamic between Phoebe and Silas. It is hard to get enough of these two – for so much of the time they are so close yet so agonisingly far apart, but that is what makes it so entertaining and makes the payoff all the more handsome. Silas is a multi-skilled operative who cannot see what is staring him in the face, while Phoebe is a gift of a character who is explored with such depth here as she turns out to be much more than her comrades ever expected.
Rosalind goes on quite a journey of her own, completing a proper redemption arc after the events of the These Violent Delights duology. As Fortune, she was impersonal and unwilling to emotionally attach herself to anything other than her mission, but her connection to Orion and the lengths she goes to in order to rescue and protect him represents quite the turnaround. The two of them are rather adorable, actually, so you can perhaps forgive the fact that Orion’s rescue was relatively easy.
However, it is a case of two out of three, as the relationship between Celia and Oliver is something of a misstep. They of course go through a lot together and both have far from relaxed personalities, but the whole romantic set up between them just felt very forced and oddly lacking in development compared to the rest. Oliver not being particularly likeable over the course of the duology did not help matters either.
All that means there was only one main character who did not become involved in a romantic sub-plot, and that is Alisa. She is too much a free spirit for all that, like trying to catch smoke. As ever, she is a delight to read, always there for some of the lighter moments but never far from the centre of the action with her powers of concealment and cavalier attitude.
Each time you pay a visit to this world, it is hard to not be mesmerised by how it just leaps off the page. It has an atmosphere of such clarity that you can feel the fragility of it, the political unrest that shakes the city’s foundations, and the eyes that pursue Rosalind everywhere she goes. Gong has such a grasp of the historical context, but when she adds the science to the mix it becomes something even more impressive.
Her writing is also on point, with intelligent, detailed passages and skilful dramatic timing – she knows the right time to unleash a revelation upon the characters which we the reader have been waiting for, with Rosalind’s arrival in Zhaozhuang and Priest’s identity the perfect examples. Other than some hit-and-miss on the romance, the whole story is supremely constructed.
Overall, this book is another force of nature to complete a series of two duologies and a novella. The setup from Foul Lady Fortune gave it all the potential to be an amazing finale and after a gradual build-up it succeeds in almost every area. It is thrilling, tense, and emotional, and offers all the many reasons why this is a world you do not want to leave behind.
Like I allude to at the end of my review, it felt momentous and even emotional to get to the end of this series. This was a great way to end, and taken on its own merits this book is absolutely beguiling.
My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Stephen Reads Books 