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dragons.bsky.social
Shen Tao
@dragons.bsky.social
500 followers 170 following 92 posts
Canadian writer based in Seattle, WA
The Poet Empress Jan '26 🌸 Tor Bramble (US) | Gollancz (UK) | preorders available!
https://linktr.ee/ThePoetEmpress
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dragons.bsky.social
Shen Tao @dragons.bsky.social · 15d
I'm so happy to say that The Poet Empress got a starred review from @publisherswkly.bsky.social !
Starred review for The Poet Empress from Publishers Weekly with quote "Tao’s prose gleams with poetic precision, and climactic revelations strike with devastating inevitability." The Poet Empress Shen Tao. Bramble, $29.99 (480p) ISBN 978-1-250-40681-1 Tao’s haunting debut immerses readers in a famine-stricken empire where poetry is power. In the final years of the Azalea Dynasty, Yin Wei, a peasant girl desperate to save her starving family, volunteers as concubine to the notoriously cruel Prince Guan Terren. This act of survival pulls her into a labyrinth of palace intrigue and rebellion, where each written word contains magic that can shape a person’s destiny, but where female literacy is illegal. Against the lush backdrop of Tao’s lyrical worldbuilding, which draws from Chinese history and myth to craft a court defined by both beauty and brutality, Wei’s transformation from naive villager to calculating courtesan is expertly rendered. Meanwhile, Terren emerges as a monstrous yet profoundly human prince. Their uneasy bond anchors a story less about romance than the corruptive and redemptive powers of language and ambition. The many political threads become fascinatingly tangled, Tao’s prose gleams with poetic precision, and climactic revelations strike with devastating inevitability. Fans of R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War and Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun will be enthralled by this fierce meditation on love, power, and survival through art. Agent: Jennifer Azantian, Azantian Literary. (Jan.) Reviewed on 10/31/2025
Reposted by Shen Tao
authorerinrose.bsky.social
SPARRING PARTNERS is available for request on Netgalley! We so appreciate your early reviews as they help drive sales 😁

🫶🏼 Happy reading!

#2026Debuts #RomanceBooks #BookSky #Netgalley
November 6, 2025 at 5:00 PM
dragons.bsky.social
SO excited about a second starred review for The Poet Empress! A world of thank yous to Library Journal 🥰
DEBUT Famine spreads across the land of Tensha, and young Yin Wei does the only thing she can think of to save her family—become a concubine to Prince Guan Terren. Heir to the Azalea Throne, Terren is a cold man, with poetry magic that he uses for cruelty and death. As Wei navigates the inner machinations of the court, she realizes that she may have to become just as self-serving as Terren to survive. Not only do the other concubines battle each other to secure the spot as future Empress, but Terren deals with attacks on his succession from his honorable older brother, and both Wei and Terren face treachery from other court members. To achieve her goals, Wei must kill Terren—and with one forbidden poem, she can accomplish it. However, the only way to write this poem of death is with love, and she hates everything Terren is. The novel’s unique magic system and character-driven plot create an immersive tale.VERDICT Tao’s debut is an intricate study of court politics and what a young woman will do to survive. Hand to fans of The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang or She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan. DEBUT Famine spreads across the land of Tensha, and young Yin Wei does the only thing she can think of to save her family—become a concubine to Prince Guan Terren. Heir to the Azalea Throne, Terren is a cold man, with poetry magic that he uses for cruelty and death. As Wei navigates the inner machinations of the court, she realizes that she may have to become just as self-serving as Terren to survive. Not only do the other concubines battle each other to secure the spot as future Empress, but Terren deals with attacks on his succession from his honorable older brother, and both Wei and Terren face treachery from other court members. To achieve her goals, Wei must kill Terren—and with one forbidden poem, she can accomplish it. However, the only way to write this poem of death is with love, and she hates everything Terren is. The novel’s unique magic system and character-driven plot create an immersive tale.VERDICT Tao’s debut is an intricate study of court politics and what a young woman will do to survive. Hand to fans of The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang or She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan.
November 6, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
kashinggiwa.bsky.social
On a planet damaged by rushed terraforming, a bodyguard-turned-reluctant rebel joins the last dregs of her parents’ failed uprising...

THE KING MUST DIE is out today! If you love stories about found families, revolutions, and second chances, this book’s for you.
Cover for THE KING MUST DIE, illustrated by the amazing Eleonor Piteira.
November 4, 2025 at 5:31 PM
dragons.bsky.social
I'm so happy to say that The Poet Empress got a starred review from @publisherswkly.bsky.social !
Starred review for The Poet Empress from Publishers Weekly with quote "Tao’s prose gleams with poetic precision, and climactic revelations strike with devastating inevitability." The Poet Empress Shen Tao. Bramble, $29.99 (480p) ISBN 978-1-250-40681-1 Tao’s haunting debut immerses readers in a famine-stricken empire where poetry is power. In the final years of the Azalea Dynasty, Yin Wei, a peasant girl desperate to save her starving family, volunteers as concubine to the notoriously cruel Prince Guan Terren. This act of survival pulls her into a labyrinth of palace intrigue and rebellion, where each written word contains magic that can shape a person’s destiny, but where female literacy is illegal. Against the lush backdrop of Tao’s lyrical worldbuilding, which draws from Chinese history and myth to craft a court defined by both beauty and brutality, Wei’s transformation from naive villager to calculating courtesan is expertly rendered. Meanwhile, Terren emerges as a monstrous yet profoundly human prince. Their uneasy bond anchors a story less about romance than the corruptive and redemptive powers of language and ambition. The many political threads become fascinatingly tangled, Tao’s prose gleams with poetic precision, and climactic revelations strike with devastating inevitability. Fans of R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War and Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun will be enthralled by this fierce meditation on love, power, and survival through art. Agent: Jennifer Azantian, Azantian Literary. (Jan.) Reviewed on 10/31/2025
November 4, 2025 at 8:20 AM
Reposted by Shen Tao
kashinggiwa.bsky.social
Just 3 days before THE KING MUST DIE comes out! I'm thrilled to share these very kind words from @hanalee.bsky.social, author of the Magebike Courier duology!

Preorder TKMD: www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Ki...
...then grab a free digital poster by Eepz: www.simonandschuster.com/p/the-king-m...
Graphic with blurb snippet from author Hana Lee: “The world of The King Must Die is a shattered, starving place, and yet the scenery and culture are so lush with detail that every description felt like a feast. Fen, the novel’s protagonist, is friendless and alone–but the people she bonds with along the road to revolution are everything an SFF reader hopes for when they hear the words “found family.” ...The King Must Die begins as a whisper and swells into a war cry.”
November 1, 2025 at 11:25 PM
dragons.bsky.social
They are giving away 50 copies of my debut, The Poet Empress, on goodreads! I hope you'll enter 🥰

#booksky #ThePoetEmpress
50 physical copy giveaway of The Poet Empress by Shen Tao on Goodreads, until November 3
October 20, 2025 at 10:36 PM
dragons.bsky.social
The comps! The magic! The social commentary! ❤️
ash-howell.com Ash Howell @ash-howell.com · Oct 8
A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC x HOUSE M.D.

Days before graduation, blood-magic medical student Nettle accidentally girlbosses herself into the middle of a murderous conspiracy. Her best friend has been hiding his radical political activism. And worst of all, she’s *really* broke.

#DVpit #F #A #LGBTQ
October 9, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Reposted by Shen Tao
n-arfaei.bsky.social
A literary NeuroScifi that dives into memory, consciousness and control.

#DVpit #SF #LF #A #IMM #OWN
n-arfaei.bsky.social Nastaran Arfaei @n-arfaei.bsky.social · Oct 8
An anti-technology cult. Missing memories. A corporate offer she can’t refuse.

A neuroscientist tries to untangle her friend’s murder while leading a team that “quenches” emergent sentience in supercomputers.

Severance X A Memory Called Empire X Ishiguro

#DVpit #SF #LF #A #IMM #OWN 💙📚🪐
October 8, 2025 at 11:59 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
cassandrafarrin.com
Straith has a disarmingly charming narrative voice that takes you somewhere unexpected every time. 💙
straith.ca Straith🍉 @straith.ca · Oct 8
GREY GARDENS in space:

A fledgling documentarian gets overly entangled with two deposed Imperials in exile on a once-opulent space station.

He must choose: launch his career as a truth-teller, or protect these people from the judgment of a hostile audience.

#DVpit #A #SF #LGBT #TV #novella
October 8, 2025 at 11:17 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
cassandrafarrin.com
I had the privilege of reading excerpts of this novel as part of the Clarion Novel Workshop. Uniquely voiced and so vibrant! Agent friends, I hope you’ll check this one out!
dalitdiva.bsky.social Thenmozhi Soundararajan/Dalit Diva ✨️is querying✨️ @dalitdiva.bsky.social · Oct 8
WE SANG DOWN THE EMPIRE 85,000 Word #Spaceopera
🛸 Nesamma Abbas, a washed-up alien musician,
🎸 joins a rebel rock band to take down the Human Empire
✨with a martial art of sound ⚡🎶
.😢She must confront her pain,
🧘‍♀️ Master her powers
⚔️ & choose: revolution
❤️ or redemption
#WOC #Asian #SFF #DVpit
October 8, 2025 at 11:09 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
cassandrafarrin.com
this sounds amazing as hell (complimentary)
jelliclejay.bsky.social jay kang romanus @jelliclejay.bsky.social · Oct 8
SUMMER SONS x CAMP DAMASCUS

BLESSED BE THE FLESH is an adult horror romance about an amnesiac cult escapee and the lonely trucker who picks him off the side of the highway. Remembering his past may destroy him, but what he's forgotten will destroy the world.

#DVpit #A #H #LGBT
A collage with images of sweaty boys almost kissing, a human/bird monster, and a cowboy pulling a horse under an intensely cloudy sky. There are also the words “A love like that made me someone new. Not even because I chose to change, I had no choice in the matter; the feeling swept me up and molded me into someone I didn’t recognize before I could look down and understand just what I had gotten myself into.”
October 8, 2025 at 11:36 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
cassandrafarrin.com
Utterly in love with this pitch!
mihika-biswas.bsky.social Mihika Biswas @mihika-biswas.bsky.social · Oct 8
A reimagining of the TITANIC in Space🚀🚢

The Sungrazer, a decadent space liner, offers new possibilities for working people like Seren, an aerial silks performer, on a new planet.

But aboard, ambitious CEOs and politicians gamble with the fate of the ship and the lives of many.
#DVPit #SF #A #Asian
October 9, 2025 at 12:06 AM
Reposted by Shen Tao
cassandrafarrin.com
Loving this setting AND the music magic!
rayrx.bsky.social raya 🇱🇧 @rayrx.bsky.social · Oct 8
To save her family from a memory-stealing plague ravaging 1920s Lebanon, Eura enlists the help of a rival village’s prized musician to find a cure. But there are darker forces at play, and they must confront ghosts of their pasts—even if it ends with 1 of them in the realm below.

#MENA #MV #DVPit
October 8, 2025 at 11:41 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
ghabibaweston.bsky.social
ARCANE x #A SPICE ROAD

An artist & an admiral conduct an impossible tea magic heist. Now they're being hunted by a sisterhood of deadly alchemists.

🗝unreliable narrator
🫀intergenerational muli-POV
🩸elements of horror
🫖creative power unlocked with tea magic
🗡colonial rage

#DVpit #F #POC #OWN #WOC
October 8, 2025 at 8:30 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
leahning.bsky.social
In the Tongue of Unbanished Ghosts:

🏜️ A desert full of war
🔪 A mother whose secrets lead to her murder
🩶 A clueless, clumsy widower who forges watches with soul
🩵 A war criminal who is, unfortunately, very attractive
🏍️ And there was only one dirt bike

#dvpit #f #a
October 8, 2025 at 6:57 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
muteddragon.bsky.social
JinYu Zhao is trying to save enough $ to restore her sister's illusion magic, while disguised, providing abortions. She won't be distracted by her sister mooning over her classmate crashing at their pharmacy #dvpit #a #f #own #poc #asian #nd #r friends to lovers, he falls first
October 8, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
ash-howell.com
A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC x HOUSE M.D.

🏥 Blood magic, medical degree required
🎓 Graduate? In *this* economy?
✊ Best friend is a secret rebel
💰 Capitalist conspiracies
🗡️ That lesbian tried to stab me, and I think I liked it

#DVpit #F #A #LGBTQ
October 8, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
n-arfaei.bsky.social
Is lobotomizing a machine that has gained consciousness just routine procedure or equal to murder?

Severance X Exhalation X Ishiguro

#DVpit #SF #LF #A #IMM #OWN 💙📚🪐
n-arfaei.bsky.social Nastaran Arfaei @n-arfaei.bsky.social · Oct 8
A neuroscientist gets recruited to lead a team responsible for finding and “killing” emerging consciousness in supercomputers.

A technical challenge that quickly spirals into a deep ethical conflict.

Severance X Annihilation X Ishiguro

#DVpit #SF #LF #A #IMM #OWN 💙📚🪐
October 8, 2025 at 8:19 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
apottern.bsky.social
@alecjmarsh.bsky.social you had me at glittering heist (the best kind). Attention editors and agents scrolling #dvpit don’t miss this!
alecjmarsh.bsky.social Alec @alecjmarsh.bsky.social · Oct 8
Scotland, 1925: A gentleman thief, a lonely demon hunter and a married sorceress embark on a glittering heist to destroy the English occult.

Forbidden passions and their own ambition threatens to destroy them before the English get the chance.

Bi rep, ace rep, mf, mmf, mm

#dvpit #a #f #queer
October 8, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
apottern.bsky.social
I have had the distinct honor of reading this book in various draft forms and it. is. so. good. Nettle has gotten herself into a hot mess, but this book is a thrill ride. @ash-howell.com is a writer to watch (or, you know, rep! get on it agents!)
ash-howell.com Ash Howell @ash-howell.com · Oct 8
A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC x HOUSE M.D.

Days before graduation, blood-magic medical student Nettle accidentally girlbosses herself into the middle of a murderous conspiracy. Her best friend has been hiding his radical political activism. And worst of all, she’s *really* broke.

#DVpit #F #A #LGBTQ
October 8, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
kmveohongs.bsky.social
Listen Val didn’t get a story into Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy for nothing. Plus a dragon named Seafoam
spacevalkyries.bsky.social val - V.M. Ayala 🏳️‍🌈 @spacevalkyries.bsky.social · Oct 8
DRAGONRIDERS OF PERN x PACIFIC RIM

A disabled mecha dragonrider struggles in an ableist society. When a hivemind of corrupted dragons threatens her people's very existence, she must team up with 3 riders—her lying would-be lover included—to save the solar system.

#DVpit #A #SF #DIS #LGBT #Latine
A moodboard with 9 tiles. The first row has purple spacescape streaks of light like hyperspace, a dragon egg, and a Latina staring at the egg. The second row has purple crystals and middle text that has crossed out "star-scarred, dragonrider, etli's claw, wave rider" then, underlined "me", followed by a person underwater. The third and final row has a closeup of a snake's eye to represent a dragon's eye, a solar system, and scale pattern to represent mecha dragon scales.
October 8, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
ash-howell.com
A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC x HOUSE M.D.

Days before graduation, blood-magic medical student Nettle accidentally girlbosses herself into the middle of a murderous conspiracy. Her best friend has been hiding his radical political activism. And worst of all, she’s *really* broke.

#DVpit #F #A #LGBTQ
October 8, 2025 at 5:31 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
alecjmarsh.bsky.social
Scotland, 1925: A gentleman thief, a lonely demon hunter and a married sorceress embark on a glittering heist to destroy the English occult.

Forbidden passions and their own ambition threatens to destroy them before the English get the chance.

Bi rep, ace rep, mf, mmf, mm

#dvpit #a #f #queer
October 8, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
masontmatchak.bsky.social
Two desperate women fleeing imprisonment.
Two draconic artifacts bonded to them.
A group of thieves who'll help them escape.
A powerful noble who'll do anything to get them back.
A secret that could ruin them.
A bond that could save them.
In a city where the sun never rises.
#DVPit #F #A #LGBT #Q
A nine-panel square mood board to promote a book. Upper left square: blue fire on a black background. Upper middle square: the moon, barely visible behind clouds. Upper right square: dark pink scales. Middle left square: a blue-haired woman tying back her ponytail with a determined look on her face. Middle square: two hands held in silhouette in front of the sunset. Middle right square: a pink-haired woman with her hair partly braided and a downcast look on her face. Lower left square: blue scales. Lower middle square: a cluster of white candles, partially melted together. Lower right square: pink crystals viewed up close.
October 8, 2025 at 12:41 PM
Reposted by Shen Tao
milliesun.bsky.social
A Song to Drown Rivers x How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days in LADY HAN'S MANUAL FOR MATRIMONIAL MAYHEM, in which the mischievous bride fights for divorce with chaos:
😈 unlikeable heroine
⚔️ enemies-to-lovers
💑 marriage of convenience
👑 political intrigue
#dvpit#A #F #R #RomCom #Asian #POC
Agent's guide to Lady Han's Manual for Matrimonial Mayhem: 89K Adult Fantasy Romcom with low spice Pitch: What can a girl do to escape an arranged marriage, but to prank her husband to hell and back in the hopes that he will divorce her? In the Dazhen Empire, twenty-year-old Wen Anling’s comfortable life is turned upside down when her father forces her to marry Han Shiyan, the wealthy Lord of Qinglan. In a desperate bid for freedom, Anling fights chaos with chaos, by transforming herself into the nastiest wife possible. Shiyan only married Anling to honour his mother’s dying wish. Had he known his new wife would send his simple life straight to mayhem, he would have thrown honour out the nearest window. But when his wife continues to get under his skin, he cannot help but grow intrigued by her eccentric nature—once he sees her irritating antics as what they truly are: harmless. In the face of deadly threats, Anling must embrace her role as Lady Han and turn her cunning mind to their common enemies, or grab the freedom offered to her and watch the empire fall. Comps: The Darkness Within Us, A Song to Drown Rivers, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days Extract: Shiyan’s eyes widened for a heartbeat before he forced composure back onto his features. Her face was powdered with a thick layer of white, as if she had simply dunked it into a bowl of flour. Her bright red lip-paint smudged at the edges and… Heavens forbid women dab their cheeks with uneven blobs of pink. Even the most senile and stern of his guests held their hands to their stomachs, straining to hold back fits of laughter. He would have gladly joined them, too, if he wasn’t the one with the honour of marrying this… this… buffoon. He swallowed and recited the wise sayings of his forefathers: one should not judge a book by its cover; a woman’s beauty runs deeper than appearances; virtues are lasting while beauty is fleeting. Oh, to hell with wise sayings.
October 8, 2025 at 12:03 PM