Lambda Award Finalist
Ignyte Award Finalist
Hugo Award Finalist for Best Novella
Locus Award Finalist for Best Novella

A Best Of Pick for USA Today Buzzfeed Ms Magazine Arlington Magazine Transfer Orbit LitHub

"A delicious bonbon of a novella about stories and their unreliable narrators, who wink at their listeners (or readers), fully expecting us to catch on."―The Wall Street Journal

"Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today."―Taylor Jenkins Reid on Siren Queen

Wandering cleric Chih of the Singing Hills travels to the riverlands to record tales of the notorious near-immortal martial artists who haunt the region. On the road to Betony Docks, they fall in with a pair of young women far from home, and an older couple who are more than they seem. As Chih runs headlong into an ancient feud, they find themself far more entangled in the history of the riverlands than they ever expected to be.

Accompanied by Almost Brilliant, a talking bird with an indelible memory, Chih confronts old legends and new dangers alike as they learn that every story--beautiful, ugly, kind, or cruel--bears more than one face.

The Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle

The Empress of Salt and Fortune
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain
Into the Riverlands
Mammoths at the Gates
The Brides of High Hill

The novellas of The Singing Hills Cycle are linked by the cleric Chih, but may be read in any order, with each story serving as an entry point.