A Fire Born of Exile is a sapphic Count of Monte Cristo inspired story in space set in the Xuya Universe. This Universe is one in which Asian culture is dominate, scholars administrate different planets, and sentient spaceships have families. A Fire Born of Exile came out in October 2023 but I received a review copy from Netgalley and I’m currently catching up on things that I meant to post earlier.

The story focuses on Quynh an Alchemist who wants revenge for events in her past and Minh the daughter of the ruler of the Scattered Peral Belt who wants to escape her mothers plans for her. I feel like I would have enjoyed this more if I better knew the story of the Count of Monte Cristo but I still enjoyed this book. I love how different the Xuya Universe is to most of the science fiction that I’ve read and I want to read more set in this universe.