We are pleased to announce the acquisition of a new romantasy, The Poet Empress by Shen Tao! The Poet Empress is set to release in Winter of 2026 from Bramble.
In the declining Azalea Dynasty, where poetry magic is forbidden to women, rice farmer Wei tricks her way into being selected as an imperial concubine to a cruel tyrant. She must harden her heart and learn to wield literomancy in secret to change the fate of an empire.
Shen Tao’s The Poet Empress is a sweeping adult fantasy perfect for fans of the lush worldbuilding, Chinese historical influences, and complicated characters in R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War, the tragic rise to greatness of Shelley Parker-Chan’s She Who Became the Sun, and the political machinations and intrigue of novels like Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince and Carissa Broadbent’s Serpent and the Wings of Night.
Chinese-Canadian author Shen Tao has dreamed of publishing fantasy stories since she was seven. An engineer with roots in Nanchang and Toronto, she later moved to Seattle to be closer to the mountains and the ocean, where she currently resides with her partner, her piano, and her menagerie of stuffed critters. Shen is a finalist for the Mike Resnick Memorial Award for science fiction, a two-time finalist for the PNWA unpublished novel contest, and a graduate of several speculative fiction workshops including Taos Toolbox, Viable Paradise, and Odyssey.
