When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain

A perfect read for an automn evening with a cup of tea. Nghi Vo is an incredible storyteller, who never loses the reader in her stories of stories told by storytellers as well as tigers. In her world, tigers fall in love in young humans, or sometimes eat them, and sit around the fire listening and re-telling their side of the old stories... It is quite magic.

Storytelling layers and drama packed so neatly, but this didn't have the depth of the first one for me.

I enjoyed this one a bit more than Empress of Salt and Fortune, I think because the tension between the tellers and the listeners adds a hint of excitement that I was missing in the first one

I wasn’t quite sure how Nghi Vo would continue after her Empress of Salt and Fortune – after all, her main character Chih, the recording monk, is hardly fit to carry sustained narratives. I needn’t have worried: this never tries to burden them with that task.

Instead, we are treated (and what a treat it is) to another take on the magic of storytelling and the nature of truth. If Empress was all about the true story lying hidden, this is about how the truth of stories is negotiable. Formally consistent with, and sharing the same rich world building as its predecessor, this second instalment is as enjoyable as the first, a wonderful feat of complex storytelling happening without any of the usual fanfare.