"In this version of pre-Code Hollywood, movie magic is real, newly discovered, and dangerous. Hordes of starlets are owned by studios who can bestow them with names. Hollow-eyed extras haunt parking lots. Stars fly high and burn out. Luli Wei, a Chinese-American girl who stumbles into a street scene, goes in with clear eyes to the perils around her. From her first scenes as a beggar child, she navigates the industry cleverly and ruthlessly to rise to fame as a monster."
Publisher Tordotcom
Publication Date 2022-05-10
Section New Hardcover - Fiction / Science Fiction
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9781250788832
Taylor Jenkins Reid's The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo meets Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus in this dazzling, fantastical coming of age story from award-winning author Nghi Vo
It was magic. In every world, it was a kind of magic.
"No maids, no funny talking, no fainting flowers." Luli Wei is beautiful, talented, and desperate to be a star. Coming of age in pre-Code Hollywood, she knows how dangerous the movie business is and how limited the roles are for a Chinese American girl from Hungarian Hill—but she doesn't care. She’d rather play a monster than a maid.
But in Luli's world, the worst monsters in Hollywood are not the ones on screen. The studios want to own everything from her face to her name to the women she loves, and they run on a system of bargains made in blood and ancient magic, powered by the endless sacrifice of unlucky starlets like her. For those who do survive to earn their fame, success comes with a steep price. Luli is willing to do whatever it takes—even if that means becoming the monster herself.
Siren Queen offers up an enthralling exploration of an outsider achieving stardom on her own terms, in a fantastical Hollywood where the monsters are real and the magic of the silver screen illuminates every page.
