The Blood Phoenix
Amber Chen
Hardcover / eBook
ISBN: 9780593622780
Viking, June 2025, 464 pgs

Greetings, readers, and welcome back to another book review! This month we’re returning to a previously visited world of silkpunk and star-crossed love, where two sisters might save or doom everything they know—that’s right, it’s The Blood Phoenix by Amber Chen, sequel to Of Jade and Dragons! (Previously reviewed here at Lightspeed in April 2024.)

The Blood Phoenix takes place two years after the events of Of Jade and Dragons (you’ll definitely want to read the first book before reading this one) and it once again features Aihui Ying as the lead character/chief troublemaker—only this time she’s joined by her younger sister Aihui Nian (who we see a little bit of during book one, but not much). Following the tempestuous end of Ying’s relationship with Aogiya Ye-Yang, eighth prince and now High Commander of the Antaran Isles, Ying has secluded herself in an isolated fishing community. Ying finds herself unwilling to face the fallout of the events that led to Ye-Yang’s rise, as well as her feelings towards him—feelings which are complicated even further by her younger sister Nian’s betrothal to Ye-Yang. Meanwhile, Nian is struggling with her own feelings towards Aogiya Ye-Kan, the fourteenth prince and once heir-apparent, as well as the growing estrangement between herself and Ying. Their lives are brought unexpectedly back together after a violent attack on Ying’s village by the fearsome Blood Phoenix pirates sends shockwaves through the Antaran Isles and threatens the precarious stability that Ye-Yang is attempting to nurture. Plots hatch, things explode, and as the fate of the Isles hangs in the balance, the four must figure out what they truly mean to each other.

One of the first things that struck me about The Blood Phoenix was how much it shifted from Of Jade and Dragons’ close-focus lens on Ying to a more macro view of political maneuvering and nation-level intrigue and how deftly it weaves in the perspectives of Nian, Ye-Yang, and Ye-Kan to do so. This is meant to be a young adults’ book, so Chen never gets too deep into the weeds on the sorts of geopolitical maneuvering taking place that you might see in something like Game of Thrones (George R.R. Martin) or The Poppy War (R.F. Kuang), but the scope of events feels suitably grand and well-plotted. We learn a lot more about the history of the Antaran Isles, as well as its ongoing issues with internal power struggles and external foes. It’s a tack I wasn’t initially expecting, but much like Chen’s subversion of tropes in the first book, it’s skillfully executed and enriches the story immensely and is helped along by the secondary cast of characters (many of whom are returning faces).

The second thing I really enjoyed about The Blood Phoenix is Chen’s commitment to humanizing and grounding her characters with accurate representations of emotional health and the importance of social bonds. Ying, Nian, Ye-Yang, and Ye-Kan are all broken in some way by what they’ve been through up to this point, but their struggle to overcome the past and build something better is both inspiring and something many readers will be able to identify with. Additionally, even though their actions are an attempt to save an entire nation, Chen makes it clear that none of the characters can accomplish their desires on their own, and that relying on others is vital to success—a message that resonated deeply with me, particularly in our current times. Chen also does a fantastic job of keeping the romantic subplots simmering away just below the surface of the story throughout the entire book, occasionally erupting at key moments and never in predictable ways.

Lastly, I also want to mention that Cheng’s penchant for memorable fight/action scenes is just as much on display in The Blood Phoenix as it was in Of Jade and Dragons. Whether it’s a chaotic fight across the deck of a ship at sea, a daring underwater infiltration against a silkpunk submarine, or full pitched battles amongst armies, Chen ensures that there are plenty of moments to get the pulse pounding and keep the pages turning. There are also some hints of cultivation (though not many) for you xiangxia fans out there (mainly involving Ye-Yang’s martial abilities), which is always fun to see in more mainstream offerings.

Overall, The Blood Phoenix is a worthy successor to Of Jade and Dragons and continues to display Chen’s growing mastery of the craft. While I’m not sure if there will be another book from Ying and Nian’s perspective (the two books were announced as a duology, and the storylines wrap up pretty cleanly), anytime Chen wants to take us back to the world of the Antaran Isles I’ll be more than happy to visit, and I’m definitely curious to see what she comes up with next.