Daughter of the Moon Goddess

Long ago, there were ten sunbirds in the sky above the mortal realm. They scorched the earth, killing hundreds of people. No human was able to stop them, until the legendary archer Houyi shot down nine of them. His reward was a potion that could grant him immortality, which he chose to not drink, remaining mortal. However, when his pregnant wife Chang`e fell ill, she saw the elixir as the only way to save her and her unborn child. After becoming immortal, she is banished to the moon as her punishment, where she lives with her daughter and a servant. "Daughter of the Moon Goddess" is a retelling of the old chinese myth of the legendary archer Houyi and the moon goddess Chang`e, told from the perspective of their daughter Xingyin. When the empress who banished Chang`e to the moon is about to find out about Xingyin`s existence, she flees from the moon. In the immortal realm, she lives the life of a friendless servan. Until she meets the crown prince Liwei and is chosen to study alongside him at the court. Here, she is thrown into a dangerous world but also finds a chance to save her mother. I don´t read a lot of romance, and the romance elements are strong in this book. However, they`re written in a way that doesn`t bother me and that I think will be appealing for fans of romantic stories. What really drew me into the story were the action elements and the world building. I didn´t know the myth of Houyi and Chang`e before reading the book, and I don`t know a lot about Chinese mythology in general, but Tan describes the world in a way that is simple to understand but still feels vivid and alive. "Daughter of the Moon Goddess" is a solid mythology retelling in the vein of Madeline Miller, Elizabeth Lim or Axie Oh.