She Who Became the Sun
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 is flung back onto a collision course with her lethal fate. Her one chance of escape is to claim another future altogether: her brother's abandoned greatness. Searching for a path to power, Zhu joins the rebellion—only to find it under existential threat from the Mongols’ most feared general: an enslaved eunuch whose
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Famine takes a peasant boy whose fortune was greatness. His sister steals his name and his fate, joins a Buddhist monastery, and rises through the rebellion against Mongol rule as a brother named Zhu.
Yes. She Who Became the Sun won the British Book Award and the Astounding Award for Best New Writer. It was a finalist for the Hugo, Locus, and Lambda Literary Awards.
Yes. She Who Became the Sun is followed by He Who Drowned the World. The duology is complete.
She Who Became the Sun was written by Shelley Parker-Chan, published in 2021 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.
She Who Became the Sun is 416 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, She Who Became the Sun takes most readers 6 to 9 hours to finish.
She Who Became the Sun is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
