Showing results by author "Aliette de Bodard" in Romance

Xích Si: bot maker, data analyst, mother, scavenger. But those days are over now—her ship has just been captured by the Red Banner pirate fleet, famous for their double-dealing and cruelty. Xích Si expects to be tortured to death—only for the pirates' enigmatic leader, Rice Fish, to arrive with a different and shocking proposition: an arranged marriage between Xích Si and herself.

When failed scholar Yên is sold to Vu Côn, one of the last dragons walking the earth, she expects to be tortured or killed for Vu Côn's amusement. But Vu Côn, it turns out, has a use for Yên: she needs a scholar to tutor her two unruly children. She takes Yên back to her home, a vast, vertiginous palace-prison where every door can lead to death. Vu Côn seems stern and unbending, but as the days pass Yên comes to see her kinder and caring side.

The Scattered Pearls Belt is a string of habitats under tight military rule...where the powerful have become all too comfortable in their positions, and their corruption. But change is coming, with the arrival of Quynh: the mysterious and enigmatic Alchemist of Streams and Hills. To Minh, daughter of the ruling prefect of the Belt, Quynh represents a chance for escape. To An, a destitute engineer, Quynh has a mysterious link to her own past...and holds a deeper, more sensual appeal. But Quynh has her own secret history, and a plan for the ruling class of the Belt.

It was supposed to be a holiday, with nothing more challenging than babysitting, navigating familial politics, and arguing about the proper way to brew tea. But when dragon prince Thuan and his ruthless husband Asmodeus find a corpse in a ruined shrine and a hungry ghost who is the only witness to the crime, their holiday goes from restful to high-pressure. Someone is trying to silence the ghost and everyone involved. Asmodeus wants revenge for the murder; Thuan would like everyone, including Asmodeus, to stay alive.