Hello, friends. ✨ Today I’m excited to be part of the blog tour for Song of the Six Realms by Judy I. Lin! Special thanks to the TBR & Beyond Tours team for organising the tour and including me in it.

Thanks to Feiwel & Friends for providing a digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Click here or on the banner above to check out the rest of the fantastic bloggers on tour!

TL;DR: In Song of the Six Realms, Lin draws us into a richly developed world inspired by Chinese mythology and lore. Following Xue’s journey, we explore the concepts of fate and what it means to be human experiencing the highs and lows of life. With writing that flows, characters that are easy to root for, and a mysterious turn of events that will make you question the trustworthiness of everyone you meet, it was easy to immerse myself in the story. While not the fastest-paced nor the most action-packed (at least in the beginning), I found myself thoroughly enjoying this story and exploring the mythology that’s woven into its pages. If you enjoyed Lin’s debut, I think it’s safe to say you’ll probably enjoy this one too!

First, I want to take a moment to appreciate the designer and artist of this cover: Rich Deas and Sija Huang. Both also worked on Lin’s debut cover and to date, the duology is still on my top-tier covers list with this one now joining the ranks. There’s such an ethereal quality to the art that I think perfectly captures the cosmic energy of this story about mortals, Celestials and magic.

“This is the way of the world […] what you offer and what someone is willing to give you. Know your worth.”

The Six Realms is told through the POV of our MC, Xue with poems, traditional songs and mythology interwoven as the story unfolds. I loved how Lin introduces us to Chinese folklore, songs and poems and creates the complex layers of a world where celestials, spirits, demons, and humans exist on various planes. I’m glad that we got to explore beyond the mortal realm and I found the imagery of the Celestial plane beautiful and terrifying. I will say that this isn’t the fastest-paced story and it takes a decent amount of pages for it to pick up. I think if you enjoy a story that takes its time to move forward with the plot, then you won’t mind this—I will say that if you’re a mood reader, you’ll probably have to wait and be in the right one for this to work for you. But it’s beautiful and worth it, IMHO 🙂

“Did our choices mean nothing when our fates were already knotted, predetermined before we even left our mother’s wombs?”

Xue is an easy character to love and root for. Branded as an “undesirable” as a result of her family’s betrayal, she grew up accepting how limited her life would be with the many restrictions placed upon her due to her low status. Still, it doesn’t stop her from dreaming of one day redeeming her name and eventually living a free life roaming the lands as a travelling musician, much like her beloved uncle is a travelling poet. I loved how the qin instrument and poetry are an integral part of her character and how Xue wields her talents with such confidence. I appreciated how she connected so deeply with each song by understanding the emotional roots of the poetry and how it helped her bring the songs she plays to life. There were moments when her naivete was a bit painful to witness but considering how sheltered her life has been, it made sense for her arc; that said, it doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have great strength to do the difficult things and to push past her fears and continuously challenges the notion of having a predetermined fate, especially as a mortal. I think she undergoes good growth by the end!

“If there was such an emotion that would render me unable to live, I wasn’t sure the gaining of it was worth the loss.”

There were quite a few characters that were introduced to once the story kicked off but it wasn’t difficult to keep track of who they were and their roles in the plot. The Duke of Dreams, Lingwei and Chenwen alongside several other Celestials and spirits brought an interesting dynamic to the mystery aspect of the plot and although my first theory proved correct, I often second-guessed myself and questioned who was responsible for all the bad. There was a twist that I never saw coming although I’m admittedly bad at seeing twists and guessing whodunit, lol. 😂 I liked the mystery that Xue and the Duke worked to solve and how it allowed elements of the magic and the lore to be further explored. A downside to how the story progressed was that because the beginning was slow when everything started happening in the third and fourth verses, it meant that side characters and their relationships weren’t as well-developed as I think they could have been. The Duke of Dreams was a kind and open-minded Celestial determined to get justice, and he was easy to like. While we got to see him and Xue get to know each other differently (and I thought it was cool), I also wished we got to see more of their interactions. At some point, there became a lot more “telling” than “showing” and that made me lose the connection to the characters and what they were going through—and the author put them through a lot in the end!

“How familiar this story. How those in power would always fight to stay in power. Lie, cheat, perform despicable acts, even as everyone below them suffered.”

Ultimately, that was the thing that kept me from rating this higher as everything pretty much exploded in the last 20%. It was a lot and while I loved how intense and action-packed the story got, it was admittedly too much in too little time. We don’t get time to process anything that happens as we jump from one action sequence to another and it came off as a bit too bonkers, IMHO! Honestly, I’m a bit torn because I did enjoy the mythology and how everything wove together in the end; even if it was wild, it made sense to the story but I just wish that we got more time to process it. I guess in a way you can say this ends neatly as the loose strings are tied but I could see this being a duology and I kind of wish that it was one so we got more character work and the plot had more room to breathe, too.

“I dreamed of a thousand lifetimes, and it would not be enough.”

Overall though, I quite enjoyed this and if you love Chinese mythology, unique magic, lush world-building and dreamy quality to your reads, I would recommend checking this out.

Do you plan to read Song of the Six Realms or does it sound like something you’d enjoy?

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