To Gaze upon Wicked Gods

Pangu is a land modelled on Chinese culture and mythology, and it has been conquered in a single day. Colonizers from Rome stepped out of a portal in the sky, and they now hold the population in check with Opian, a drug that is both addictive and deadly.

Yang Ruying was born blessed by Death. Anyone she touches loses their life to her, a gift that sits oddly among her people, who have been stripped of power. She keeps it hidden, until a chance meeting with Antony Augustus, the youngest Roman prince, brings it into the open.

He takes her captive and gives her a task: use her death-touch to help him assassinate his rivals. In return, he will protect her family. She has no good way to refuse, and every kill deepens her place in the empire she despises.

This is epic fantasy with a political edge. The conquest and the drug echo the history of the Opium Wars, and the author also draws on Manchurian folklore. Expect colonial rule, addiction and the hard bargains people strike to stay alive, seen through a heroine whose power makes her both a weapon and a prisoner.