I’m in love with Shanghai Immortal and I’ve only recently just found out about the book. I hope people don’t sleep on this. Why did I fall for Shanghai Immortal? There is simply this charm to the writing, characters, and setting. Also, I loved all the Chinese mythology and lore embedded into the plot and locations, but they had twists to them.

Lady Jing of Mount Kunlun aka Grand Princess Overflowing with Sagacity aka Noble Lady Hu Xian Jing of the Turquoise Hills is born of a hulijing (fox spirit) mother and vampire father. Because of this, Jing is constantly bullied by her fellow fox relatives and shunned by the rest because she has to sustain on blood. Yes, even though she’s in Hell, the yaojing (demons) are wary of her. Of course, this has to do with her explosive temper which got her into hot waters multiple times, especially when it concerns the rest of the hulijing court.

At first, I thought I would be annoyed by her behavior but Lady Jing grew on me. Since her vampiric father is absent and her hulijing mother was killed, Lady Jing was sent to Yan Luo Wang for protection. However, Lady Jing assumed that she was pawned by her mother to the King of Hell to repay shopping debts. With resentment and hidden disappointment growing, Lady Jing hides her true feelings behind her rebellious actions and impatient personality. In actual fact, she just wants to be friends with others and live a normal life without people looking at her for being different.

Shanghai Immortal started off with Lady Jing picking up a parcel, for Big Wang, which turned out to be a human being named Tony Lee. He’s there to help develop the bank system in Hell. Even in Hell, things are being modernized. When Lady Jing overheard that she hated hulijing courtiers are planning to steal a dragon pearl from Big Wang, she was determined to use this chance to take her revenge for all the things they had done to her in the past. Mr. Lee will be there every step of the way.

One thing about Lady Jing is that she didn’t believe that people are her friends or are her support. Her protective layer hardened at every curse, accusation, and abuse that the hulijing court had thrown her direction. This is why she didn’t believe that Big Wang was truly looking out for her or that Lady Gi is her friend or that her mother loved her. I’m glad that it changed and she no longer felt as alone in the world as she thought.

A.Y. Chao incorporated Chinese lore into Shanghai Immortal brilliantly. Meeting familiar mythical creatures like Bullhead and Horsey (牛头马面), gods of the three stars (福禄寿), the Goddess of the Moon (Chang’e), hopping vampires (jiangshi), and the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl (牛郎织女) was incredibly fun. The descriptions of the food and the settings were so real too. I can picture the setting and characters vividly in my head. This can be attributed to A.Y. Chao’s writing and maybe my many years of Chinese drama watching.

For the romance, I was fully invested in Mr. Lee and Lady Jing’s development. The entire time I was just rooting for them to be together even though one of them is a human living in yang Shanghai while the other is a fox spirit/vampire living in yin Shanghai. BUT WHO CARES. They need to be together. Also, the interactions between Gigi and Ah Lang were overtly romantic which made it funny in some scenes, especially when they had the drinking competition.

Overall, I had so much fun reading Shanghai Immortal. I wasn’t expecting to meet Lady Jing as the main character. She was brazen and loud and interesting. She’s unapologetically herself and I loved each time she made Mr. Lee blush because she’s just showing her ass or talking about boobies. Also, I think nostalgia played a factor because I knew of Chinese folklore. It’s just very charming.

Unfortunately this book did not work for me. I found the writing to be very difficult to follow and it came off as trying to be too funny (tatas, pissfart, sasshole). It just did not land for me. It read very YA to me, not adult, and I just could not relate to the MC.

I might try again at a different time, but as of now it’s a no for me.

DNF at 10%

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the e-ARC!

I loved the concept of this book!! It was a rich and fun world which played upon Yin and Yang as there are two Shanghai’s that mirror each other. The idea for this world was very unique and has a fleshed out world which was fairly easy to understand. There was no info dumping and everything was revealed at a good pace. My biggest issue with this book was the MC came off very immature and annoying. A lot of her problems she created herself or could’ve avoided if she didn’t lash out. We do see character growth for her throughout the book and her actions mature especially near the end. But I couldn’t get over her constantly calling people “piss-farts” or “turd-heads” sometimes it felt like we were dealing with a 11 year old at some points with how she spoke. But other than that I liked the romance ,there was a fun twist I didn’t see coming, and lots of good reveals too!

There are elements of this book that I really liked - the setting is gorgeous (even though I would have preferred more expansive world-building throughout the book) and the narrative reads quickly. However, I found it disappointing overall - I'm not sure it's one I'd pick up to read again.
I didn't necessarily mind the FMC's language, but it was jarring to equate her narration with her age and experience - along with the pacing, this is very clearly a YA book that skews away from the adult-fantasy crossover.
The romance was alright - and that's about all I can say on that.
I have high hopes for AY Chao as their style and voice develops.

Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for an advanced copy of this novel for an honest review. The release date is slated to be in October/November of 2023. This novel centers around a young woman who is half vampire, half hulijing (fox spirit) named Jing. Adopted by the King of Hell for the price of a dragon pearl, she can’t find a place to that allows her to be accepted for who she is. Often called a mongrel for her heritage, she adopts an attitude and a 3 foot concrete wall to protect herself from hurt and pain and being killed for who she is. Enter a mortal Tony Lee, who has his own reasons for entering Immortal Shanghai and begins to break down some concrete walls…. 😉 I loved this book for the character bonds and for the theme of acceptance and the need to be loved. The quiet but determined Mr. Lee is one of my favorite characters. He does the little things that are the big things that just tug at your heart. 5 🥭 because everyone needs a village and a Mr. Lee. 😁 I recommend the read and give it a minute… it’s worth it.

4.5 rounded to 5

Having been immersing myself in Asian (Chinese especially) historical media and literature for the past eight years, I was so excited to grab this vivid, cheerfully irreverent homage to Chinese mythology, especially the fantastical tales. This is A.Y. Chao's debut, first of a series, and I am so looking forward to more!

Our narrator is Lady Jing, ward of Big Wang, the King of Hell--who rules the mythic world that overlies thirties Shanghai. I've now seen enough series and films (including film clips from the actual period) set in thirties Shanghai, to salute the research that went into evoking an amazing period in China's very long history. Thirties Shanghai was a meeting and amalgam of different cultures, each gleefully borrowing from the others to try them on, resulting in an exhilarating period that, unfortunately was all too soon overshadowed by world war.

This is a perfect setting for a story that borders the mythic world with a trip across the river.

Lady Jing is nearly 100 years old, and, typical for Xianxia, that means she's a young thing teetering on the verge of adulthood. In Xianxia, a cosmos full of gods and demons and weird spirits, time measure is in centuries and millennia. She's a "mongrel," or so her horrible relations insist, which is why she's the ward of the King of Hell. She's half huli, or nine-tailed-fox, and half vampire. She's been raised by a couple of venerable mythic figures in Big Wang's Court. ("Wang" by the way, means "king") She's feisty and mischievous and burgeoning with nascent power, but like many adolescents on the verge of adulthood, she's too impatient to sit for lessons. Especially as it seems everyone in Hell's court hates her guts, and there are powerful figures related to her who go out of their way to be cruel. With the emotional fallout you'd expect.

Lady Jing is requested by Big Wang to meet a mortal who is proposing a bank for the undead. Big Wang is interested in modernizing Hell, which means creating a bank. So Jing meets Tony Lee, a mortal who is clearly (except to inexperienced Jing) smitten with her, pretty much from the start.

Adventures ensue, with plenty of earthy observations by Jing, as she painfully comes to terms with aspects of her birth and early years. Perhaps symbolic, she fights hard against wearing the qipao, the gorgeous silk gown of the period--skin-tight, it looks spectacular on the right body, at the cost of moving. Or even breathing freely. And Jing, trained in martial arts, needs to be able to move.

I won't say any more than that. I galloped through the book, delighting in Jing and her adventures, and her slow, wary approach to growing up and into her powers. Along the way we get a thorough grounding in Chinese myth; what I loved most, I think, was Mr. Lee's reason for coming to Big Wang in the first place. That resonated with so many of the Chinese stories I've been inhaling over these past few years. Likewise, I loved the scattering of Chinese vocabulary through the story, exulting in the fact that I recognized all these words.

The result was a satisfying immersion in a world I want to revisit, leaving me looking very much forward to Lady Jing's further adventures.

4.5 because the copyediting could have been much better.

I tried really hard to enjoy this book but struggled hard. The writing was not really at a standard or level I am used to, especially with immature terms being thrown about every other page. I may still try to pick this up later on and give it another go but for now I'm having to DNF it. Maybe it's that I'm just not I'm the right mindset for this right now. If my opinion changes in the future after reading it I will definitely be updating my review on goodreads to reflect it.

Shanghai Immortal is a captivating story that is also unlike anything you've read before.
There is never a dull moment and you'll be constantly laughing. The characters are witty and well developed as well.
I really really enjoyed this book and how it integrated supernatural aspects into a sort of historical setting in 1920´s Shanghai.

This book had some great moments, but ultimately wasn't my favourite.

The book is based in shanghai but the immortal version. I liked the Chinese Mythological aspects and the way they were incorporated into the world building. I also enjoyed that there were two versions of shanghai coinciding and that you got to understand how each impacted the other.

I don't believe this book fits in the adult genre, it definitely felt more YA. The underlying story is about the FMC discovering herself and coming to terms with her life and how although she is different she is still loved by those around her. There was a lot of interesting uses of words such as 'ta ta's' 'Piss-Fart' and 'egg-turd' which brought the writing to YA in my opinion.

I really wanted to like Lady Jing, but she was just as a bit to whiny. The love aspect fell a little flat, it felt forced and the characters had little chemistry.

One thing I did really enjoy were the side characters. I could very clearly see that each of them had a unique personality and it really added to the story especially when this interacted with Lady Jing.

Overall I wouldn't be put of reading more from A.Y. Chao in the future I just feel like this book was missing something.

*Thank you to NetGalley & Hodder & Stoughton for providing me with the ARC to review.

A cheeky traipse in Hell. Shanghai Immortal is a fun and enlightening adventure that blends Chinese myth with a modern aesthetic. A. Y. Chao's attention to detail brings Shanghai and her characters to life. Also, Lee provides Lady Jing an earnest and worthy Jiminy Cricket.

A fantastic, addictive and hilarious debut that will take readers on a wild ride! Buckle up!

Meet Lady Jing, a half vampire, half fox spirit that was pawned by her mother to the King of Hell as a child. With a very short fuse, bad temper and absolutely no filter, she has spent the past ninety years running errands and trying to survive the constant attacks from spiteful hulijing courtiers.
When the King requests that she escorts a human guest to meet him, she has to make sure no one or something eats him. Things get complicated when she overhears the courtiers planning to steal the dragon pearl from the King's treasury. With the help of the mortal guest, Jing embarks on a journey to prove herself, expose (or get revenge against ) those responsible for her pain and trauma, and maybe... fall in love in the process. What can possibility go wrong?

I absolutely loved Lady Jing as a protagonist. She has absolutely no filter, saying and insulting without discrimination, and speaking her mind no matter who is in front of her. Her snarky, sarcastic comments and insults made me laugh multiple times. But beneath the string front she puts on, it's a young woman unable to let go of her pain and of everyone's opinion of her. I also enjoyed her most vulnerable moments, her growth, and the growth of the relationships with those around her close circle. The secondary characters are so complex and well-explored that I know the story wouldn't have been the same without them, their strengths and their unwavering love for Jing. Gigi is a particular favourite of mine.

The world-building is simply fantastic. I loved the idea of Hell being a close-copy of Mortal Shanghai, and how the two are connected. The description of all the foods and cocktails made me want to just eat Asian for a week! All those dumplings...

The ancient Chinese myths and legends are integrated beautifully into the story and the little drops of historical and social history, made this book that much better and immersive.

I can't recommend it highly enough!

Shanghai Immortal is a successful, funny, ironic and mysterious debut, which mixes Chinese mythology and culture with fantasy elements such as vampires and demons but also with a very nice romance and a magical and enchanted setting like the city of Shanghai in the 1930s

The protagonist, Lady Jing, half vampire / demon and half fox spirit was given by her mother to the King of the underworld when she was little and now she lives in the immortal Shanghi, doing menial errands for the king.
The book centers around her journey to seeking the truth about a plot to steal a highly coveted dragon pearl from the king. Through her adventures accompanied by a banker from the world of the living, she will find friendships, love and even herself!

Lady Jing is a really strong, funny, immature, impulsive and cheeky protagonist, but during the novel she will also experience moments of vulnerability and above all of growth, while the male protagonist, Mr Lee, is a very reserved, kind, thoughtful man and a bit goofy... it's a cinnamon roll! Indeed it is a Baozi :) I loved their relationship, the love story is really cute and I liked how it was developed.

I loved the setting and the historical aspect! Chinese culture, traditions, food, especially food!!

The only criticism I can make is the ending: in fact I didn't like how it was handled and how the book ended, but I can't wait to read the next book in the trilogy to find out how the story continues and meet my beloved characters again!

Thanks to Netgalley and Hodder&Stoughton for providing me with this ARC!
Immortal Longings is out everywhere June 1, 2023!

Thank you to @hodderbooks and @netgalley for my e-ARC of Shanghai Immortal by A.Y. Chao.

I want to preface this review by saying that I know for a fact that this book will not be for everyone. If you have delicate sensibilities and are easily offended by words like "piss-fart" and "ta-tas," as a matter of fact, you might hate this book. I, however, have the mouth of a sailor and am not offended by profanities. In fact, I found them hilarious. You see, Lady Jing, our FMC, is an absolute sasshole, and I love her for this. I love that Chao didn't shy away from developing Lady Jing's sassiness because she felt colorful and full of life.

Lady Jing is half vampire, half fox spirit, and a ward of Hell. The book was full of hijinks and chaos in the best possible way, and I truly happened upon it at the best possible time, since I've been reading mostly dark, heavy, complex fantasy. And that's not to discount the world that Chao built, but giving credit to the levity that was baked into the story. It's rare that a book hits my mood just right, but this one definitely did.

The plot wasn't particularly fast-paced, but I really didn't mind it because of how much I loved the characters. Obviously I would die for Lady Jing, but I loved Mr Lee and Gigi as well. All around, this book was a damn good time, but one where heading in you need to know you're reading for the ~vibes~ and those vibes are that you need something magical, and funny, and light-hearted. I loved the story in and of itself, but the author's note at the end was just *chef's kiss.* All the stars. I can't wait to add this one to my shelf!

I was so excited for this book after reading the synopsis but unfortunately it was a letdown.
I loved the idea of this book, the chinese mythology, and its setting but that was it.
It was advertised as a "richly told adult fantasy" but tbh it read as a YA or even a middle grade. The writing style was very juvenile, & our main character is supposed to be an immortal 100yr old but she acts like a kid which was so annoying.

Even though I didn't enjoy this book, I would still recommend it to people that are starting to transition from reading YA to Adult books.


Thank you to the publisher & NetGalley for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review

I was initially a little sceptical of Lady Jing. I understood why she was so defensive but her behaviour was annoyingly juvenile at times. She ended up growing on me. The story had a great plot and I liked a lot of the characters. Everything was described in such a way that I could picture it in my head and I appreciate when an author can do that. It allows me to fully immerse in the book. I’m already looking forward to the next instalment.

Thank you NetGalley for the advance copy.

I expected to like this one since I read another Chinese mythology, but it was kind of hard for me to enjoy following the story, the worldbuilding. I think it could've used more development. The romance was bland, and it was definitely not for me. I wish I could talk to some people about this book, perhaps it may change my perspective.

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an e-ARC

Oh. My. God. I'm not kidding when I say 100/5. This was incredible. I love how the MC thinks; she's so hilarious and caustic, it's wonderful. I couldn't stop laughing at her inner monologues. She was a bit childish for her age, which I appreciated at times but found a bit annoying at others. While reading this, I learned a lot about all the different creatures in Chinese mythology. As well as the names of traditional Chinese attire that I may have seen before but couldn't name. Plus, all that talk of xiao long bao has made me extremely hungry, and I desperately need to go get some to satisfy my cravings. I absolutely enjoyed reading this, and the tale kept me entertained throughout. I really liked the mystery and adventure elements in this book, especially those hidden secrets, which brought the unfolding story together in the end. I really enjoyed the pure and slow burn of a romance that brewed between Lady Jing and Tony Lee. I really encourage you to check out this; it's one of my absolute favourites from 2023!

‘Lies are the broken planks that keep me from drowning in all the shite that gets thrown my way.’

I received an advance review copy from NetGalley, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I was provided an eARC of this book by the publisher/NetGalley in exchange of an honest review.

I enjoyed the easy writing style that Alice has. Unfortunately, the book was a letdown in every other aspect. Nothing much happened in the book and it was more a YA than NA story.

The main character was extremely insufferable and I couldn’t stand her using words like ‘piss-fart’. She was very shallow in behavior too. The love interest developed out of nowhere. The liked the other characters but I can’t comment on it more since characters were well developed.

In general, I’d say this book was a pass for me. However, given the easygoing writing style, I’d like to see what Alice does in the future.

Lady Jing, half-vampire and half-hulijing, has spent the past ninety years running errands for the King and trying to fit into the court life. She teams up with a mortal, Mr. Lee, to find evidence that courtiers are plotting against the King.

I hear historical fantasy and I run. I like how the historical aspect blended with the fantasy and even the romance aspects. I also loved the differences between immortal and mortal Shanghai, which were both explored so well in my opinion. I will definitely be reading more from this author!

In an underworld parallel to 1930s Shanghai, the King's ward, a half vampire half hulijing spirit spends her days creating mayhem and struggling with her identity and powers. When she overheards a plot against her guardian by her estranged maternal family, Lady Jing sets out to uncover their secrets and prove her mettle. With her mission complicated by the mystery of the human banker Tony Lee, Lady Jing sets off on a trail of mayhem throughout the mortal and immortal worlds.

I was looking forward to this book since I first saw it announced, and it definitely lived up to expectations. Authors of asian mythology have been hitting it out of the park consistently for the past few years and this was no exception. I didn't expect the comedic aspect of it, but Lady Jing's irreverence and her friendship with Gigi were the true highlights of this book.

I liked Tony Lee well enough, although I was pretty ambivalent before his backstory and their journey to mortal Shanghai. Jing was a treasure, exasperating at times but always for good reason and like Big Wang, you just can't stay mad at her.

I wish that Jing's powers and how she came into them had been more detailed, but I'm hoping the fact that it wasn't means that this could evolve into a series.

The world building was spectacular, rich in history of what Shanghai might have been like, with enough glitz and glamour to dazzle without sweeping very real issues under the rug. I like my fantasy grounded in a touch of reality, magic doesn't cure all ills after all.

Overall this was a really enjoyable read, with a world I'd love to dive back into.