Joan He, Sound the Gong (Kingdom of Three #2), Text Publishing, April 2024, 368 pp., RRP $24.99 (pbk), ISBN 9781922790682
This is one book that hits the ground running and assumes that readers are up to speed with the first book Strike the Zither. If you haven’t read Strike the Zither, you might want to avert your eyes to avoid spoilers, because Sound the Gong throws us straight into the scheming and plotting as Zephyr wakes up as a god in a warrior’s body, the strategist and advisor to Xin Ren, the lordess who commands the Westlands.
Three kingdoms are pitted against each other, and Zephyr will do anything to make sure Ren wins, but Zephyr and Ren’s other advisors are not the only ones plotting and scheming and fighting to rule over the three kingdoms. Zephyr is determined to take down the enemy strategist, Crow, who counters her in wits and ruthlessness at every turn, but what grows between them will test loyalties and shake the heavens.
The story itself steers very clearly into the bittersweet tragedy of many ancient Chinese stories, and anyone who enjoys watching Chinese historical dramas or reading manhua graphic novels will fall in love with this series. There is enough chemistry between Zephyr and Crow to make any romantically inclined reader swoon, and The Kingdom of Three duology is going to grab readers of 16 and up who are fans of the enemies-to-lovers trope. For readers who like their romance with more dramatic emotional tension than spicy sex scenes, this is the series for you, and kissing is as far as things go.
There is, however, a certain amount of violence. While the violence in the book isn’t described in brutally graphic detail, there is blood, death and torture on the page, as well as character death and mention of a dream of suicide, and sensitive readers should proceed with some caution.
The characters are fascinatingly morally grey, and one of the compelling elements of the series is just how far Zephyr and the other characters will go to achieve their ends. What lines are they willing to cross, or not, and why?
Joan He has based The Kingdom of Three duology on the 14th century historical Chinese novel, Romance of Three Kingdoms, which is attributed to Luo Guanzhong and set in the later years of the Han dynasty. This series is a fantasy reimagining of the source material, renaming and frequently re-gendering the original historical characters, and the author’s notes at the end of the book make for fascinating reading.
The artwork included is a fabulous bonus for fans of manhua and helps to visualise the characters and sink into the sweeping romantic drama of it all. And who doesn’t want a bit of sweeping romantic drama sometimes? The Kingdom of Three duology delivers it in spades.
Reviewed by Emily Clarke
