She Who Became The Sun by Shelley

 

China lies under harsh Mongol rule.  The villagers barely eke out a living and are always only one attack away from death.  When her village is attacked and she loses her family, one girl finds a way to survive.  She takes her brother's name, Zhu Chongba, and enters a monastery. Zhu had been predicted to achieve greatness and she now feels that she has inherited not only his name but his destiny.  She is not sure how this will happen but she knows it will.

In the nation, things are stirring.  There is a rebel force of the natives who want to overthrow the Mongols and take their country back.  They are called the Red Lanterns.  The Mongol forces have a fearsome general, General Ouyang. As a boy, his entire family had been killed by the Mongols after being declared traitors.  Ouyang survived this massacre but only by becoming an eunuch and being given as a slave to the son of one of the top ministers.  Over the years, these two boys grew to be men and soldiers and best friends.

This is a book of secrets and betrayals.  Zhu rises to the top general of the Red Lanterns after his monastery is burned and he is thrown out to make his way in the world.  He joins the army and finds a way to defeat the Mongol forces in several battles and earns the top spot.  Zhu and Ouyang know they will face each other on the field and each knows that their existence depends on their successes.  Who will be triumphant?

This book has gotten a ton of praise.  It was the winner of the British Fantasy Award and a finalist for such awards as the Hugo, Locus and Lambda Literary award.  The author transports the reader to the courts and battlefields of the dying days of the Mongol rule of China and the beginning of the Ming dynasty.  There are battles, love scenes, betrayals and political maneuvering.  This is a debut novel and the reader can expect great things from this author as she continues her writing career.  This book is recommended for fantasy and literary fiction readers.