
She Who Became the Sun
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Narrated by:
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Natalie Naudus
About this listen
Read by fan-favorite narrator Natalie Naudus
Mulan meets The Song of Achilles in Shelley Parker-Chan's She Who Became the Sun, a bold, queer, and lyrical reimagining of the rise of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty from an amazing new voice in literary fantasy.
To possess the Mandate of Heaven, the female monk Zhu will do anything
“I refuse to be nothing…”
In a famine-stricken village on a dusty yellow plain, two children are given two fates. A boy, greatness. A girl, nothingness…
In 1345, China lies under harsh Mongol rule. For the starving peasants of the Central Plains, greatness is something found only in stories. When the Zhu family’s eighth-born son, Zhu Chongba, is given a fate of greatness, everyone is mystified as to how it will come to pass. The fate of nothingness received by the family’s clever and capable second daughter, on the other hand, is only as expected.
When a bandit attack orphans the two children, though, it is Zhu Chongba who succumbs to despair and dies. Desperate to escape her own fated death, the girl uses her brother's identity to enter a monastery as a young male novice. There, propelled by her burning desire to survive, Zhu learns she is capable of doing whatever it takes, no matter how callous, to stay hidden from her fate.
After her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion against Mongol rule, Zhu takes the chance to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness.
A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books
©2021 Shelley Parker-Chan (P)2021 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
Lambda Literary Award - Nominee, 2022
“The characters are bold and complex in this story of fealty, family, and self. Epic worldbuilding, high action, and ruthless shades of love and desire make the tale at turns tragic and inspiring... Parker-Chan’s debut is forceful, immersive, and unforgettable. This inspired queer retelling of Chinese history is an exciting read.” (Library Journal, starred review)
“Parker-Chan’s gorgeous writing accompanies a vibrantly rendered world full of imperfect, fascinating characters. With every turn of the page, the book offers a new set piece, a new revelation, a new horror.... If you’re a fan of epic fantasy, you can’t miss this one.” (BookPage, starred review)
"Natalie Naudus delivers this epic of fate, ambition, and identity set in thirteenth-century Mongol-ruled China." (AudioFile review)
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- By: Yoon Ha Lee
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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To win an impossible war, Captain Kel Cheris must awaken an ancient weapon and a despised traitor general.
Captain Kel Cheris of the Hexarchate is disgraced for using unconventional methods in a battle against heretics. Kel Command gives her the opportunity to redeem herself by retaking the Fortress of Scattered Needles, a star fortress that has recently been captured by heretics. Cheris' career isn't the only thing at stake. If the fortress falls, the Hexarchate itself might be next.
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Just too confusing with enough context
- By Jose Alvarez on 04-02-17
By: Yoon Ha Lee
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The Bird King
- By: G. Willow Wilson
- Narrated by: Elmira Rahim
- Length: 14 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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G. Willow Wilson’s debut novel Alif the Unseen was an NPR and Washington Post Best Book of the Year, and it established her as a vital American Muslim literary voice. Now she delivers The Bird King, a stunning new novel that tells the story of Fatima, a concubine in the royal court of Granada, the last emirate of Muslim Spain, and her dearest friend Hassan, the palace mapmaker. Hassan has a secret - he can draw maps of places he’s never seen and bend the shape of reality.
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Good enough to suffer through the poor narration
- By J. OBrennan on 03-22-19
By: G. Willow Wilson
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We Hunt the Flame
- Sands of Arawiya, Book 1
- By: Hafsah Faizal
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham, Steve West
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Zafira is the Hunter, disguising herself as a man when she braves the cursed forest of the Arz to feed her people. Nasir is the Prince of Death, assassinating those foolish enough to defy his autocratic father, the sultan. If Zafira was exposed as a girl, all of her achievements would be rejected; if Nasir displayed his compassion, his father would punish him in the most brutal of ways. Both Zafira and Nasir are legends in the kingdom of Arawiya - but neither wants to be.
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Every Arabic word is mangled.
- By Faiza Ambah on 05-15-19
By: Hafsah Faizal
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The Dark Tide
- By: Alicia Jasinska
- Narrated by: Lori Prince
- Length: 8 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Every year on St. Walpurga's Eve, Caldella's Witch Queen lures a boy back to her palace. An innocent life to be sacrificed on the full moon to keep the island city from sinking. Lina Kirk is convinced her brother is going to be taken this year. To save him, she enlists the help of Thomas Lin. But they draw the queen's attention, and Thomas is chosen as the sacrifice. When Lina offers herself to the queen in exchange for Thomas' freedom, the two girls await the full moon together. But Lina is not at all what Eva expected, and the queen is nothing like Lina envisioned.
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Very good
- By Destiny Lewis on 03-20-23
By: Alicia Jasinska
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The Tiger's Daughter
- By: K Arsenault Rivera
- Narrated by: Caroline McLaughlin
- Length: 14 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The Hokkaran Empire has conquered every land within their bold reach - but failed to notice a lurking darkness festering within the people. Now their border walls begin to crumble, and villages fall to demons swarming out of the forests. Away on the silver steppes, the remaining tribes of nomadic Qorin retreat and protect their own, having bartered a treaty with the empire, exchanging inheritance through the dynasties. It is up to two young warriors, raised together across borders since their prophesied birth, to save the world from the encroaching demons.
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Writing format that didn't work for this book
- By kara-karina on 02-24-18
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Burning Roses
- By: S.L. Huang
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu
- Length: 3 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Rosa, also known as Red Riding Hood, is done with wolves and woods. Hou Yi the Archer is tired, and knows she's past her prime. They would both rather just be retired, but that's not what the world has ready for them. When deadly sunbirds begin to ravage the countryside, threatening everything they've both grown to love, the two must join forces. Now blessed and burdened with the hindsight of middle age, they begin a quest that's a reckoning of sacrifices made and mistakes mourned, of choices and family, and the quest for immortality.
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Fairy tales blended with Asian sentiment
- By 🔥 Phx17 🔥 on 12-17-23
By: S.L. Huang
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Girls of Paper and Fire
- By: Natasha Ngan, James Patterson - foreword
- Narrated by: Allison Hiroto
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In this richly developed fantasy, Lei is a member of the Paper caste, the lowest and most persecuted class of people in Ikhara. She lives in a remote village with her father, where the decade-old trauma of watching her mother snatched by royal guards for an unknown fate still haunts her. Now, the guards are back, and this time, it's Lei they're after - the girl with the golden eyes whose rumored beauty has piqued the king's interest.
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Don’t judge a book by it’s cover, the cover is Beautiful the Book is Awful.
- By Ellie Belly McShelly on 12-11-19
By: Natasha Ngan, and others
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A Dark and Hollow Star
- By: Ashley Shuttleworth
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Neo Cihi, Natalie Naudus, and others
- Length: 19 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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For centuries, the Eight Courts of Folk have lived among us, concealed by magic and bound by law to do no harm to humans. This arrangement has long kept peace in the Courts - until a series of gruesome and ritualistic murders rocks the city of Toronto and threatens to expose faeries to the human world. Four queer teens, each who hold a key piece of the truth behind these murders, must form a tenuous alliance in their effort to track down the mysterious killer behind these crimes. If they fail, they risk the destruction of the faerie and human worlds alike.
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Great Book
- By Kathleen L. Larsen Williams on 06-16-21
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The Wicked Bargain
- By: Gabe Cole Novoa
- Narrated by: Vico Ortiz
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Mar is a transmasculine nonbinary teen pirate hiding a magical ability to manipulate fire and ice. But their magic isn't enough to reverse a wicked bargain made by their father, and now el Diablo has come to collect his payment: the soul of Mar's father and the entire crew of their ship. When Mar is miraculously rescued by the sole remaining pirate crew in the Caribbean, el Diablo returns to give them a choice: give up their soul to save their father by the harvest moon, or never see him again. But Mar refuses to make a bargain, and there's no way their magic is a match for el Diablo.
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Queer Latine Pirate Bruje
- By StormMiguel Florez on 05-01-23
By: Gabe Cole Novoa
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Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws
- And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities
- By: Adrienne Mayor
- Narrated by: Nancy Crane, Adrienne Mayor
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Adrienne Mayor is renowned for exploring the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge to find historical realities and scientific insights—glimmering, long-buried nuggets of truth—embedded in myth, legends, and folklore. Combing through ancient texts and obscure sources, she has spent decades prospecting for intriguing wonders and marvels, historical mysteries, diverting anecdotes, and hidden gems from antiquity, medieval, and modern times. Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws is a treasury of fifty of her most amazing and amusing discoveries.
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Random Historical Information for the Noggin
- By leahck on 03-11-25
By: Adrienne Mayor
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To Shape a Dragon's Breath
- The First Book of Nampeshiweisit
- By: Moniquill Blackgoose
- Narrated by: Charley Flyte
- Length: 16 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The remote island of Masquapaug has not seen a dragon in many generations—until fifteen-year-old Anequs finds a dragon’s egg and bonds with its hatchling. Her people are delighted, for all remember the tales of the days when dragons lived among them and danced away the storms of autumn, enabling the people to thrive. To them, Anequs is revered as Nampeshiweisit—a person in a unique relationship with a dragon.
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Fantasy- 1 star indigenous peoples trials- 4 stars
- By Jim on 01-07-24
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Spear
- By: Nicola Griffith
- Narrated by: Nicola Griffith
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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The girl knows she has a destiny before she even knows her name. She grows up in the wild, in a cave with her mother, but visions of a faraway lake come to her on the spring breeze, and when she hears a traveler speak of Artos, king of Caer Leon, she knows that her future lies at his court. And so, brimming with magic and eager to test her strength, she breaks her covenant with her mother and, with a broken hunting spear and mended armour, rides on a bony gelding to Caer Leon.
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Sooooooo lovely!
- By J. James-Long on 03-11-25
By: Nicola Griffith
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Bravely
- By: Maggie Stiefvater
- Narrated by: Fiona Hardingham
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Merida of DunBroch needs a change. She loves her family—jovial King Fergus, proper Queen Elinor, the mischievous triplets—and her peaceful kingdom. But she's frustrated by its sluggishness; each day, the same. Merida longs for adventure, purpose, challenge–maybe even, someday, love.
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Just perfect!
- By Robin Heraghty on 05-16-25
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Forged by Blood
- A Novel (The Tainted Blood Duology, Book 1)
- By: Ehigbor Okosun
- Narrated by: Nneka Okoye
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In the midst of a tyrannical regime and political invasion, Dèmi just wants to survive: to avoid the suspicion of the nonmagical Ajes who occupy her ancestral homeland of Ife; to escape the King’s brutal genocide of her people—the darker skinned, magic wielding Oluso; and to live peacefully with her secretive mother while learning to control the terrifying blood magic that is her birthright.
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Had a lot of potential but some weird chouces actively detracted from my enjoyment of the story
- By Cottage Hoe on 12-20-24
By: Ehigbor Okosun
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The Priory of the Orange Tree
- By: Samantha Shannon
- Narrated by: Liyah Summers
- Length: 25 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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The House of Berethnet has ruled Inys for a thousand years. Still unwed, Queen Sabran the Ninth must conceive a daughter to protect her realm from destruction - but assassins are getting closer to her door. Ead Duryan is an outsider at court. Though she has risen to the position of lady-in-waiting, she is loyal to a hidden society of mages. Ead keeps a watchful eye on Sabran, secretly protecting her with forbidden magic.
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In a word, WOW
- By Kevin Potter on 03-09-19
By: Samantha Shannon
Slow Burn
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So good
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Liked the Book, but the ending left me wanting
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Middle of the Road IMO
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A Queer Epic for the Ages
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Great story
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Excellent
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Amazing
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Powerful Storytelling and Intriguing Characters
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Beautiful powerful story, I loved the different perspectives and how it created a whole world of flawed beautiful characters. I did struggle a bit to keep track of who was who, but that just gives me an excuse to listen to it again now with a better grasp of the cast. I'm halfway through my second listen and enjoying it just as much with a better ability to appreciate all the nuance as things develop.
Amazing lyrical story
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