May 28

May 28 Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea

Author: Rita Chang-Eppig
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

For readers of Outlawed, Piranesi, and The Night Tiger, a riveting, roaring adventure novel about a legendary Chinese pirate queen, her fight to save her fleet from the forces allied against them, and the dangerous price of power.

When Shek Yeung sees a Portuguese sailor slay her husband, a feared pirate, she knows she must act swiftly or die. Instead of mourning, Shek Yeung launches a new plan: immediately marrying her husband's second-in-command, and agreeing to bear him a son and heir, in order to retain power over her half of the fleet.

But as Shek Yeung vies for control over the army she knows she was born to lead, larger threats loom. The Chinese Emperor has charged a brutal, crafty nobleman with ridding the South China Seas of pirates, and the Europeans-tired of losing ships, men, and money to Shek Yeung's alliance-have new plans for the area. Even worse, Shek Yeung's cutthroat retributions create problems all their own. As Shek Yeung navigates new motherhood and the crises of leadership, she must decide how long she is willing to fight, and at what price, or risk losing her fleet, her new family, and even her life.

A book of salt and grit, blood and sweat, Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea is an unmissable portrait of a woman who leads with the courage and ruthlessness of our darkest and most beloved heroes.

TL;DR Review

Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea is a lush, poignant dramatization of the life of legendary pirate queen Zheng Yi Sao. It’s very interior, more about her than her adventures. I liked it a lot.

For you if: You like quiet historical fiction about strong women steeped in folklore.

Full Review

As soon as I heard about Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea (two words: PIRATE QUEEN) I knew I had to read it. It turned out to be a different book than I expected (or was quite in the mood for), but I still ended up liking it a lot.

This book is a dramatization of the life of Shek Yeung (better known as Zheng Yi Sao), a woman who led a massive, legendary pirate confederation during the Qing Dynasty in the early 1800s. She’s has been called the most successful pirate in history (they even put her in one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies). It starts when her husband, the former leader, is killed, and she very quickly moves to secure her leadership by marrying his chosen heir.

But this novel is much more of a character study than an adventure — it’s not about her conquests, it’s about her interiority throughout it all. Throughout the book, we see her fight to protect her fleet and her position — a struggle between survival and hope, ruthlessness and love, freedom and roots. It’s a fascinating exploration of how gender roles and power dynamics persist even in places where those things are already so different from the rest of the world.

I’d also add that I think “for fans of The Night Tiger” is pretty accurate — not for plot, but for vibes. This is billed as a fantasy, but I wouldn’t call it that. Maybe historical magical realism: the “magic” is more like folklore. Plus, it follows a more literary-fiction-eque approach.

Anyway, this was a lush, beautifully rendered, carefully imagined novel. As long as you don’t go in expecting a swashbuckling badass pirate adventure, I think you’ll like it a lot.