The more she investigates, the more she finds factions pushing back against her, and the more she learns about her society and her father’s secrets, the less likely it seems that she’ll be able to solve anything. The trial process only lays bare the fissures in Yan society – and the rotten parts of the system. (This seems like a family of youthful overachievers: they make me feel old and tired.) Hesina finds someone to act as her prosecutor/investigator: a young convict with a dark past called Akira, but it turns out that Sanjing’s right. Her adoptive brother and sister, 19-year-old viscount Caiyan and the equally youthful mistress of the wardrobes Lilian, are her allies in opening an investigation, but her 16-year-old brother, Sanjing (a well-respected military general) warns her that investigating the emperor’s death will result in court factions attempting to convict a scapegoat – one connected to the recent border troubles with a neighbouring nation – rather than find out the truth. Hesina might be first in line to inherit the throne, but her hands are tied by law and custom. She feels sure he was murdered, and her quest to bring him justice leads her to consult a sooth to find out how she can convince the powerful ministries to open an investigation into his death. Seventeen-year-old Princess Hesina is committing treason. (One wonders about nosebleeds, childbirth, and menstruation – it would seem that one’s clothes would go on fire.) In Yan, even now, sooths and anyone consulting them are condemned to death by a thousand cuts, and the populace still hates them virulently, despite how much time has passed. They also killed thousands of “sooths” – soothsayers whom the previous emperors relied on to tell the future, who can also do magic and whose blood burns blue on exposure to air. They freed slaves and serfs, instituted gender equality, and tried to build a more just and equitable landscape. Two of them (known to history as One and Two of the Eleven) were the first rulers of the empire’s new age. Centuries ago, a band of 11 heroes overthrew the last of the so-called relic emperors.

(I’m almost certainly missing references and resonances that would make the reading experience even deeper, simply due to my lack of familiarity with parts of the well from which He’s drawing.)

It’s a lush, deeply realised world, full of laws and ministries and red-light districts, scents and textures and presences, histories and legacies.

Descendent of the Crane sets itself in a world deeply influenced by Chinese history and culture. I more than liked Joan He’s debut fantasy.

Descendant of the crane joan he