Thank you Net galley for a providing me with a free digital copy of this extraordinary book in exchange for an honest review.

There was just something about Daughter of the Moon Goddess that I loved. There's a bit of everything I love about fantasy: mythological inspiration, celestial magic, mythical creatures, mystical weapons and brave warriors tasked with making the right choices. Oh and not to mention, palaces in the sky!!

Xingyin's journey from a small comfortable life on the moon with her mother who she doesn't know is exiled; to alone and unprotected; to finding her own path and mastering the skills she needs to become a force to protect herself and maybe even free her mother is inspiring and heartwarming. So much happened in this one book!!!! Even though there's some monster slaying and a whole bunch of danger there is a gentleness to the characters; each one is multi-faceted and clearly crafted with a lot of thought and care whether they were a main character, a side character or a walk on. This meant I really cared about what happened.

I loved the writing style; descriptive, evocative but with a lightness and breathing space for the reader to fill in the gaps. I'm looking forward to reading more by this author!

A gorgeous story told in three parts, Daughter of the Moon Goddess perfectly entwines Chinese myths and legends to create a stunning tale of love and longing.

When I first started reading this beautiful book I have to admit I wasn't sure about it. Inspired by the Chinese legend of Chang'e, Sue Lynn Tan writes very elegantly but also I found it a bit whimsical which usually puts me off.

Despite this, I found I couldn't put it down (in my head) and I looked forward to picking it up when I had any spare time. So yes, I loved it - the story covers a lot of ground but it worth the time.

The narrative is easily spun, creating a world and introducing characters smoothly - I was desperate for Xingyin to achieve her goals and fully invested in her love life too. I have thoughts and I have feelings which I'll keep to myself until the books release and more people have read it but I don't think I've ever read such a complex character in a debut novel.

I highly recommend this one (which I've just seen is going to be a duology!) - there are some stunning editions coming out too in case you were wondering.

The legend of Chang'er has always struck me as heartfelt and sad, so this imagining (what if she had a daughter?) really intrigued me. There are some gorgeous passages and it's packed with plot, but at times I felt a little bit ungrounded (rather like the protagonist!). A beautiful package with some beautiful writing, I just wanted to fall slightly more in love with it than I did.

This is a beautiful story with an enemies to lovers vibe. Secrets upon secrets are kept in a tale of the Goddess f the moon being bound to the moon and secretly having a child. To protect her daughter she has told her to not use her magic. Everything changes when she leaves the moon and has to fend for herself. This is a fantastic story with a strong and brave female protagonist.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess was a good book that I did enjoy but it did have its flaws. The writing was great and very vivid. The characters were very well rounded and they all had their motives, flaws etc. I just thought that there was too much plot. It definitely felt like too much. I also had a difficult time getting through it, especially the ending. Other than that it was an enjoyable read.

Thank you to netgalley and the publisher for the free e-arc!

I think it’s safe to say that the writing in this one is something so beautiful and lush that I was half in love with the book simply because of that. I mean, there are other things that I truly enjoyed, obviously but I will be honest and the major factor was the writing. Xingyin as a character would have easily become one of the stereotypical main characters but she didn’t.

Let me tell you why I truly enjoyed this book. The prose really worked for me, the worldbuilding was so well done! I love mythology of any kind and Sue Lynn Tan made sure to travel around the celestial and mortal realms and made me love them. I am and probably always will be a sucker for good worldbuilding, I suppose. The story was about personal goals but it also felt good to read about the worlds we visit. It is a YA book and it’s always a hit or miss for me for various reasons but this one was a hit. There were a couple of things I was still not a fan of and that’s a personal preference over other things but those things matter enough for me to lower the rating to 3.75, unfortunately.

Some of them being the fact that as a character, Xingyin’s character never felt like it grew or developed despite the story spanning such a long time period. The dreaded love triangle. I absolutely do not understand the need for love triangles in 2022 but perhaps I am not the audience for that and that’s okay, I should just be careful about picking up books. This one felt especially unnecessary but once again, that might be my personal distaste for this trope.

I think overall, it’s a great story at the end of the day. It’s YA and it’s meant for YA. I just didn’t click with certain aspects of it. I loved the writing style and I will definitely be reading the sequel, I also loved the family aspect of the story a lot more and perhaps that more than anything made me really like it. If you think of it like a C-drama then you will definitely enjoy it because that’s what it felt like with it’s lush settings and gorgeous writing.

What an amazing start to a series! I honestly could not believe how much happened in this book, not a dull moment, let me tell you!
First of all this is a fantasy story with a rich cultural background and history of the land, with immortal Gods and royalty at the centre. However, it is also a coming of age tale of a girl, burdened by her parents' sins, trying desperately to win her family's freedom. And of course, if romance is your thing, you will not be disappointed either! Great characters, beautiful writing and an exciting plot, what more do you need!

This is a late review, but thank you to HarperVoyager & Netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

First of all, as a frequent watcher of costume cdramas (though i must admit, i watch wuxia and political dramas more and not much xianxia), i loved the cinematography of the story the author was able to capture through vivid imagery, the writing so beautiful and whimsical - from the details of clothing and accessories to food and architecture decorations to the lush scenery and distinct xianxia setting - that my costume cdrama heart felt so happy and fulfilled. The description of the magical powers of the immortals was also unique, with each immortal's individual magic so different from another and each kingdom's type of magic specific to the region they belong in.

The exploration of the Legend of the Moon Goddess, the different versions and how much truth each variation of the story holds was also well done, especially the way the heroes and villains of the story were determined differently by every person affected due to their own relationships to the characters involved. I also loved how the mother daughter relationship between Chang'E and Xing Yin was written, endearing and precious at the start and evolving into an everlasting and enduring love throughout the story. Their willingness to sacrifice a part of themselves for each other throughout their long years together and apart was especially touching.

Xing Yin's journey was one filled with grief, loss, heartbreak, love and betrayal (or a mixture of all), but a few things that remained constant through it all were her strong, protective love for her mother, her unwavering loyalty to her family and her fierce determination to save and free her mother with whatever means necessary, even at the expense of her own safety and life. There were many times in the book when fate had dealt her a huge blow and brought her immense pain, but she never stopped fighting and seeing the hope and clinging onto it with all her might. As with all main characters, she is not without her flaws, and there were so many times I was frustrated with her, but also so many times her actions brought me pride and made me root hard for her.

Her unyielding bravery despite her fear is one of her most outstanding qualities, and her self-assuredness her most attractive, and those 2 qualities combined together make her easy to fall in love with as our 2 male main characters did. I can't say who I love more because I love BOTH Liwei and Wenzhi despite their mistakes and flaws, and i hope the sequel gives us a satisfactory resolution to their love triangle (aka I hope they all end up happy and together somehow🙈)

The ending of the first book also left many questions answered, such as the mystery of the immortal warrior who commanded the dragons and potentially the full extent of Xing Yin's powers (which I feel we haven't seen yet) as well as the consequences of what Xing Yin did at the end, and I cannot wait for all to be answered in Heart of The Sun Warrior. The one critique I have though is the excessive use of the word "which" in Xing Yin's narrative, which in many occasions could and should have been replaced with "that". That did affect the reading experience for me a little as it made it harder to connect with her feelings, thoughts and emotions because the way the word was used affected the sentences written, and therefore those sentences did not click in me the way they should have.

This was lovely! The writing style was whimsical and I loved the mythology. I absolutely enjoyed Daughter of the Moon Goddess.

I can totally understand why so many people love this book and have left glowing reviews, it was beautifully written with rich world building and gorgeous prose. The premise was interesting and I am always up for a mythology inspired story.

However. I HATE love triangles. As soon as that element started to reveal itself I completely lost interest and began to find it all a bit boring. That is absolutely not the authors fault and is completely down to my own personal taste, as I said her writing is beautiful and I would still recommend this book to everyone for that reason alone.

Thank you NetGalley and Harper Voyager for providing me with a free digital copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am sure many people will enjoy this but honestly, this wasn't for me. I have read this exact same story so many times now and the only thing that this book does differently is the world building which is inspired from Chinese mythology. I am not well-read in Chinese mythology so its always good to learn something new, which I did through this book.

Apart from that, everything you think will happen, happens in this book, there were very few surprises in the story. The main character is brave but also suffers from special snowflake syndrome. There's hardly any character growth in any of the character. There's a love triangle - which is a disaster. I am not totally averse to reading love triangles, sometimes they can be fun. In this book though, it just frustrated me.

The sum of it is, this book feels a lot like it was written during 2012 -2015, when these tropes were all the rage. In this time and age however, they have become obsolete.

Sue Lynn Tan has written one of the most beautiful pieces of literature I’ve come across in a long time. This book will go down as one of my top 5 of 2022 and I’m eager for the second book!!

🌖🌒The Daughter of the Moon Goddess 🌖🌒 is an epic Fantasy tale based on a Chinese myth and the ethereal world building reflects this.

The Celestial Kingdom and its rulers reminded me a bit of the Greek Olympians, with big egos, cruel intentions and manipulation all landed on fluffy white clouds.

Chang’e is the secret daughter of the disgraced moon goddess, she flees her home and sneaks into the Celestial Emperor’s Court by her wits and talents alone. Once there, she hopes to free her mother, clear her mortal father’s name and keep the Crown Prince as her treasured friend (wink, wink)

The myth elements were excellent, the world and the culture rich and descriptive, but it was the indulgent writing that let me down. It was a bit too wistful, the amount introspection to the ratio of action made reading tiring, even though I was really invested in the story and the world. It just felt like it needed one more brutal edit to be a bit more concise as I found myself skimming sections out of preference of the action-packed moments, rather than the paragraphs of what I can only describe as umming and ahhing.

I remain heavily invested in the story however and would read the next one (pls @bloomsburypublishing, would love a physical proof this time)

Thanks @netgalley for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review ✨

Thank you to netgalley for providing me with this e-arc

“Everyone has their own troubles; some lay them bare while others hide them better.”

w o w just wow this book was such a stunning and beautiful read.

Daughter of the moon goddess is a story Inspired by the legend of Chang’e the Chinese moon goddess. We follow Xingyin as she leaves the sanctuary of the moon on a quest to help free her mother and attempt to navigate the Celestial Kingdom.

This book is truly filled to the brim with character development, love triangles, beautiful writing, Chinese mythology and culture. For one of my most anticipated reads for 2022, Daughter of the moon goddess was a joy to read.

While there was no cliff hanger we have been left with a lot of loose ends which I can not wait to see how they are handled in book two.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess is an absolutely stunning book. I read it over the course of several months -- it's a bit of a slow burn and my focus has admittedly been a bit off -- however, it kept me coming back and pulled me in every single time I returned to it.

Daughter of the Moon Goddess is a story of family, loyalty, love, survival, and betrayal and I got lost in Tan's beautiful writing. She does an incredible job of creating a lush and gorgeous writing style that's slow and meandering, but absolutely demands your attention. I loved Xingyin's journey and growth, as well as her loyalty to her roots.

I thought I knew where this book was going, but oh boy was I wrong. Daughter of the Moon Goddess is an early contender for my favourite book of 2022.

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

CW: brief attempted assault

While eloquently and beautifully written, this Chinese myth inspired coming of age story failed to grip me, which is why I stopped reading at 21%.
The story moved pretty fast despite giving the impression of a slow-paced narrative, most likely due to the lyrical writing style. It utilised some tired YA genre tropes not in a particular interesting or innovative way which turned the story into just another generic YA book with a special snowflake of a heroine. I also wasn't a fan of the instalove and heavily foregrounded romance subplot.
However, it might appeal to a younger audience or people looking for whimsical fairytale-esque stories. This really shouldn't be advertised as adult fantasy.
Thank you to HarperVoyager and Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

A gorgeously descriptive and utterly entrancing story. A whirlwind of emotions were experienced listening to this book. A really enjoyable experience!

This was one of my first fantasy books I read in 2022 a few months ago and it was truly a special one! Loved it so much, the characters, the setting, the story was such a beauty! What more is there to love when it’s a high fantasy, has dragons and moon palaces!! Oh so so good

This was everything i could've dreamed of and more. The writing was beautiful, the characters were raw and real, and the magic just flowed out of this book. I am truly obsessed with it and can't wait for the sequel!