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The Poet Empress

The Poet Empress Meet the Epic Fantasy Debut of the Year

Hardback (20 Jan 2026)

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Publisher's Synopsis

House of the azalea, where thorn meets bud;
Brother betrays brother, blood forgets blood.

Young rice farmer Yin Wei was forced to become concubine to Prince Guan Terren - a monstrous wielder of poetry magic, and heir to the Azalea throne - to save her family from the famine blighting the land of Tensha.

Now confined to the imperial court, Terren's cruelty is not the only danger Wei faces. He and his honourable older brother are locked in a deadly succession war, while Terren's thirty concubines are fighting a war of their own, for the position of future empress.

To survive, Wei must harden her heart, rely on her wit, and become dangerous herself - even if it means learning the one forbidden poem that can kill Terren and save both herself and the nation.

But there's a problem - for the spell to work against a man she hates, it must be written with love.

About the Publisher

Gollancz

Gollancz is the oldest specialist SF & Fantasy publisher in the UK. Founded in 1927 and with a continuous SF publishing programme dating back to 1961, we are home to a galaxy of award-winning and bestselling authors. Through our long-running SF and Fantasy Masterworks programme, and major digital initiative the SF Gateway, we have one of the largest ranges of SF and Fantasy of any publisher in the world. Mission: To publish the very best authors in the fields of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, to re-present the classics of the genre to a fresh audience and to discover the stars of tomorrow. To boldly go, dare we say it, where no publisher has gone before . . .

Book information

ISBN: 9781399628969
Publisher: Orion
Imprint: Gollancz
Pub date:
Language: English
Number of pages: 432
Weight: -1g
Height: 240mm
Width: 156mm