Burning Roses

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From Hugo Award Winner S. L. Huang

"S. L. Huang is amazing."—Patrick Rothfuss

Burning Roses is a gorgeous fairy tale of love and family, of demons and lost gods, for fans of Zen Cho and Neon Yang.

Rosa, also known as Red Riding Hood, is done with wolves and woods.

Hou Yi the Archer is tired, and knows she’s past her prime.

They would both rather just be retired, but that’s not what the world has ready for them.

When deadly sunbirds begin to ravage the countryside, threatening everything they’ve both grown to love, the two must join forces. Now blessed and burdened with the hindsight of middle age, they begin a quest that’s a reckoning of sacrifices made and mistakes mourned, of choices and family and the quest for immortality.

Reviews

“Burning Roses by S. L. Huang is a beautiful, deeply affecting novella that braids Western fairy-tale traditions with Chinese mythology in a way calculated to mash my every emotional button.”—The New York Times Book Review

“S. L. Huang delivers one of the best additions to the fairy tale genre in recent years. Burning Roses presents a compelling tale that

favors change, the chance to forgive, and—universally—the desire to be forgiven.”—The Chicago Review of Books

“Huang dazzles in this dark, diverse fairy tale remix. . . . Fantasy fans won’t want to miss this.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“The regret and wisdom of aging monster hunters, who are starting to question who was the monster in the equation anyway, make for a complex and compelling relationship. . . . Huang is clearly an author to watch.”—Booklist

“S.L. Huang’s Burning Roses is a complex and thought-provoking adventure story following two middle-aged lesbians as they hunt monsters and reckon with their own monstrous pasts.”—Shelf Awareness

About the Author

S. L. Huang is a Hollywood stunt performer, firearms expert, Nebula Award finalist, and Hugo Award winner with a math degree from MIT and credits in productions like “Battlestar Galactica” and “Top Shot.” The author of the fantasy novella Burning Roses as well as the Cas Russell novels including Zero Sum Game, Null Set, and Critical Point, Huang’s short fiction has also appeared in Analog, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Nature, Tor.com, and more, including numerous best-of anthologies.