June CL Tan Books

June CL Tan grew up in Singapore on teh tarik, classic literature and wuxia films, and that combination explains most of what her books do. She writes fantasy that draws on Chinese mythology and diaspora folklore while sounding thoroughly contemporary, and she has described the aim as making something fresh to the eye and familiar to the heart. Publishers Weekly named her a Flying Start in 2021 on the strength of her debut, and she has since become a UK number one Sunday Times bestselling author.

Jade Fire Gold, that 2021 debut, is a xianxia-influenced young adult fantasy built on two point of view characters: Ahn, a girl with dangerous and poorly understood magic and no memory of where she came from, and Altan, an exiled prince who wants his throne and his revenge and is not particular about the order. The magic system runs on life force, which means using it costs something specific and escalating, and Tan keeps that cost in view rather than forgetting it when the plot needs a rescue. The book was named one of Bank Street's Best Children's Books of the Year.

Darker by Four, her second series, moves the material into a contemporary setting and is the more commercially explosive of the two. The pitch is Shadowhunter Chronicles crossed with the Chinese underworld: a modern city, demon hunters, gods with bureaucratic problems, and a magic system built out of Chinese folk religion rather than Western occultism. The duology concludes with Brighter Than Nine. It is faster, funnier and more openly aimed at the BookTok reader than Jade Fire Gold, and the four rotating viewpoints keep the pace high.

What defines her writing is control of tone across registers. Tan can move from a comic scene in a noodle shop to genuine cosmological horror within a chapter and neither undercuts the other. Her characters are angry in ways the genre often smooths over, particularly Altan, whose revenge arc is allowed to be unattractive. She also handles diaspora material without turning it into exposition, which is harder than it looks.

On heat, calibrate before you start. Both series are young adult and on our spice scale they sit at 0 to 1. The romance in Jade Fire Gold is a genuine enemies to lovers arc with real distrust on both sides, and it resolves in tension and a kiss rather than anything explicit. Darker by Four carries multiple relationship threads at a similar level. Readers arriving from adult romantasy should treat both as fantasy-first books with a strong romantic current.

Why she matters to a romantasy audience: the Chinese-inspired fantasy current running through the genre now, from Daughter of the Moon Goddess to She Who Became the Sun, is one of its most productive, and Tan is one of the writers who helped make it a category rather than an exception. Her particular value is that she writes both the historical-mythic register and the contemporary urban one, which very few authors in that space do. If you have exhausted the historical shelf and want the same mythology with mobile phones in it, Darker by Four is the answer.

Where to start: Jade Fire Gold if you want xianxia, palace intrigue and a slower burn, or Darker by Four if you want speed, humour and a modern setting. They are unconnected, so there is no wrong order. Jade Fire Gold is a standalone, which makes it the lower-commitment test of whether her voice suits you. One caveat worth flagging: Jade Fire Gold's ending divides readers, with some finding it abrupt and others reading the same restraint as deliberate. Darker by Four has no such problem, but it does end on a hook that requires the sequel, so pick your poison. Either way, both series are complete and available now, which is more than can be said for a lot of the shelf.