I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Zilan dreams of becoming a royal alchemist, of providing for her family by making alchemical gold and gems for the wealthy to eat in order to stay young forever. But for now, she’s trapped in her impoverished village in southern China, practicing an illegal form of alchemy to keep food on the table—resurrecting the dead, for a price.

When Zilan finally has the chance to complete her imperial exams, she ventures to the capital to compete against the best alchemists in the country in tasks she’ll be lucky to survive, let alone pass. On top of that, her reputation for raising the dead has followed her to the capital, and the Crown Prince himself seeks out her help, suspecting a coming assassination attempt.

The more Zilan succeeds in her alchemy, the more she gets caught in the dangerous political games of the royal family. There are monsters lurking within the palace walls, and it’s only a matter of time before they—and secrets of Zilan’s past—catch up with her.

Short and Sweet Review

Zilan’s dream is to become a royal alchemist, she wants to be able to provide for her family and make sure that they’re stable. But for now she lives in a village with her aunt, uncle, and cousins practicing an illegal form of alchemy, resurrecting the dead, for money. Zilan has the chance to take her imperial exams and she passes and along with her cousins they travel to the capital to complete more tests. Zilan has a reputation that has traveled far from her little village all the way to the palace, and the prince has asked for her help to stop a future assassination attempt on his life. At the palace Zilan learns that there’s a lot of politics at play and the palace is even more dangerous than she originally thought.

This book was addicting right from the start. We meet Zilan and learn that she’s an alchemist and is able to resurrect the dead. Zilan is also determined to pass a test to become a royal alchemist, after her first test in the village she’s surprised to learn that she was actually selected, but before that unbeknownst to her the prince asks her to come to the Palace to save his life but she declines. When Zilan and her cousins arrive in the capital they begin their training. Its obvious to most that Zilan will push herself and she’s very risky, she’s also looked down upon by the others testing to be an alchemist, it also didn’t help that it seemed like the prince favored her. Anyway we learn that those in line for the throne after the emperor dies are being killed off one by one and the next person in line is the prince (Hong). There’s a bit of romance between Zilan and the prince but I feel like he liked her more than she liked him, I feel like the conversations between them were always taken the wrong way by at least one of them. One thing I did enjoy was seeing Zilan with her cousins, I did enjoy the family dynamic and seeing that even though they were arguing they all cared about each other. It was interesting to see that this book involved monsters and a bit of mystery as to who was killing everyone and who was coming after the prince. I did like the alchemy aspect and seeing Zilan do her thing even though sometimes she went too far when she knows how much danger she’s putting herself in. Zilan is an interesting character in the fact that she doesn’t really come off as likable, she has a short temper and she’s very combative, but I really wanted her to succeed. The book is fast paced and I was loving it until I got to the end, everything just seemed to happen a little too quickly. I thought this book was going to be a stand alone but after getting to the end I realized there’s going to be a sequel.

Overall, this was a fast paced book full of action, mystery, and fantasy. I haven’t read a lot of books about alchemy so it was fun to see how it was incorporated here and I enjoyed the historical setting. Definitely check this book out!