Title: The Tiger’s Daughter

Author: K. Arsenault Rivera

Rating: 5/5

Are there LGBT characters? Hell to the yes. It’s a lesbian love story.

Brief summary / book review: I loved this book. It is so beautiful, y’all. Here, read this excerpt:

If you ask any Qorin what home is, the answer would vary. Their mother’s ger. This spot by the Rokhon where the sun caught the silver grass just so. On the back of their mare, their cheeks worn red, a good bow in hand.

But my answer has been the same since that moment when we were thirteen.

Home is holding you. Home is the smell of your hair. I would give up the howling gales of the steppe to listen to you breathe. All the stars in the sky, all the fallen Qorin guiding us through the night, could not compare to the brightness of your eyes when you looked at me. Your eyes were wide, so wide, like campfires burning.

In the style of Guy Gavriel Kay, who writes Earth-adjacent books, K. Arsenault Rivera has constructed a quasi-historical China/Japan/Mongolia setting here (there’s been some discussion about whether this is appropriation vs. appreciation, and I go into that in my Goodreads review. As you’ve probably figured, I’m solidly #TeamAppreciation).

The Tiger’s Daughter features a romance between two women, one of the Empire and the other of the steppes. It’s an epistolary tale, which is a bit strange in the sense that one character is retelling the history of her relationship with the other. The other person was present, so why bother with the retelling? But don’t think too hard about that, and just let yourself slowly be immersed by the beautiful words, the vivid language, and best of all, the romance of the two women.

It’s a slow-paced tale; it’s not an action-packed sprint, but a wandering in moonlight. Take your time with this one, and savor it.

About the ‘Are There LGBT Characters’ series of posts: Being a gay reader, I am interested in LGBT books, but I haven’t always seen reviews clearly note if there are LGBT characters and how significant they are. These mini reviews are my way of addressing this problem.