The first book to be featured this season on the Sara Cox Radio 2 Book Club is The Poet Empress by Shen Tao—a sensational debut that enthrals with its fierce meditation on love, power, and survival through art.
The book will be released on 20 January and Shen’s interview with Sara is on BBC Sounds from Tuesday 13 January.
Read an exclusive extract.
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The Poet Empress
Young rice farmer Yin Wei was forced to become concubine to Prince Guan Terren – a monstrous wielder of poetry magic, and heir to the Azalea throne – to save her family from the famine blighting the land of Tensha.
Now confined to the imperial court, Terren’s cruelty is not the only danger Wei faces. He and his honourable older brother are locked in a deadly succession war, while Terren’s thirty concubines are fighting a war of their own, for the position of future empress.
To survive, Wei must harden her heart, rely on her wit, and become dangerous herself – even if it means learning the one forbidden poem that can kill Terren and save both herself and the nation.
But there’s a problem – for the spell to work against a man she hates, it must be written with love.
About the author
Shen Tao immigrated to Canada at an early age and grew up inspired by both Chinese and Western stories. She has wanted to be a writer for as long as she can remember. _The Poet Empress_ is her first book. The Poet Empress was acquired by Tor in the US and Gollancz were engaged in a six-way auction for rights in the UK.
A word from Shen
“Dear Sara and the BBC Radio 2 Book Club, thank you so much for choosing The Poet Empress for your readers. It was the biggest thrill and honour for my debut novel to be noticed by a book club as illustrious as yours, and especially by the librarians making up the panel. I actually wrote my first book in a library, at age 17 (The Poet Empress is my ninth). The summer after high school, I got my parents to drop me off every day at the local public library, the same one I grew up visiting, at eight in the morning and pick me up at five, and slowly but surely, in the quiet between bookshelves and the murmurings of patrons, I finished my first ever manuscript. The Poet Empress is the book of my heart and I’m beyond excited for it to reach so many more readers. Thank you to everyone in this incredible world of books, I’m very grateful.”
Get involved
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