Nowhere Bingo 26: Novella
Dark Corner Selection: January 2026
Chih is a young cleric from the Singing Hills monastery who travels around the country searching for stories and history. At the shores of Lake Scarlet, Chih finds the abandoned dwelling where the former Empress In-Yo (the titular Empress of Salt and Fortune) spent her many years in exile. Chih encounters the elderly Rabbit, one of the Empress’s former handmaidens, who tells Chih stories of her own past and how it intertwined with that of the Empress.
Rabbit came to court, sold by her parents to cover up a shortfall of five baskets of dye, and while she was there, she met and became loyal to In-Yo, who came to the court from the North, uncultured and savage by the measures of the capital. Once she performed her wifely duties and had birthed the Emperor a son, she was forcefully sterilised and exiled to Lake Scarlet, where it was hoped she would die in obscurity. Rabbit accompanied her mistress, and while Chih is cataloguing the various items left behind in the house, Rabbit tells them how In-Yo slowly and meticulously, despite very few resources or allies to her name, plots her revenge and patiently, over the course of many years, plots her way back to power.
This was our January selection for the Dark Corner, my IRL book club. We usually meet on the last Wednesday of every month, but since that means that our December meeting would fall right between Christmas and New Year’s, when most people are busy with family and holidays, we always do the meeting for that book in early January. As a consequence, we try to read a short book, or a novella as our January book, so everyone has time to read it before the second meeting, at the end of January. Nghi Vo has so far published six novellas about the cleric Chih from the Singing Hills, (with a seventh coming out later in 2026), many of which have won awards. The Empress of Salt and Fortune won the Hugo and Locus Awards for Best Novella in 2021, so it felt like a good choice. I keep picking them up in e-book sales, but this is my first time reading one, or anything from the author (despite owning six different things she’s written).
Full review here.
