The Scarlet Alchemist started off strong, but then the plot twists started piling up on each other with no rhyme or reason. A dark and gory Chinese historical fantasy, it explores racism/xenophobia and classism. Zifan struggles to fit into a society that refuses to accept her because of her half-Western heritage, but

when it's revealed that she's been resurrected, her name mysteriously changes from Su Zifan to So Zifan at the end of the book, which is a wild inconsistency

. Also, for all that Zifan is supposed to be a brilliant alchemist, she's annoyingly stupid,

outright talking about rebellion in the royal palace and hanging around trying to figure out what happened to the pearls in the library when Wenshu is rightfully pointing out that they need to gtfo. On alchemy: why on earth would you put your brother's soul into your lover's body? Ew ew ew. Speaking of the prince's body, the romance came out of nowhere and wasn't even a believable enemies to lovers plot. Lastly, there's a giant gaping plothole: if bringing people back drains loved ones' qi to keep them alive...then how are Wenshu, Yufei, and Zilan alive at the end of the book?

I absolutely love this book. I have read the debut series from this author, and I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to meet her when she released this book and this book is her best work yet!

This book follows Zilan who wants to escape her poor life to become a Royal Alchemist. After studying and working hard and having a disadvantage to all the other alchemist, she sets her sights on completing the alchemy exam and fulfilling her dream.

However, dreams are not always what they seem to be and Zilan finds out very quickly that there are monsters all around her. A story of forbidden love, family secrets, personal growth, and discovering truths the story is entertaining from beginning to end.

I was really surprised on how much blood and gore was in this book considering it is marketed as a young adult so please have that mindset going into it. I personally loved it and it felt so raw and real and goes to show that life, even in books, have losses and devastation that you can’t come back from. Unless you have the power of an alchemist… then maybe the laws of life can be bent a little!

I definitely felt like this book needed just a little more romance to really build up that feeling of love between The two love interest in this book. But I like how the romance did not take away from the plot fantasy and political intrigue of the story. Yes this book has a sprinkle of historical fiction. But this author takes a lot of liberties in creating her own world from some historical facts which means that a lot of what happens in the book is not actually historically accurate which I felt just made it more fun and enjoyable.

Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.  

I absolutely love this author! Kylie Baker is awesome at fusing  mythology and mysticism with history and real events. 

Most of her books have an absolutely insane twist at the end that is absolutely tragic. This book is no different, though this books ending is a little less “OMG” than her  Empress of Time series. 

This book is extremely bloody and gory with vivid descriptions of humans being torn apart, blood and gore, and mass death.

Her take on alchemy is awesome and unique involving everything from eating stones for element, to specific stones with special properties like earth, air, or fire.

Cant wait to read the 2nd book in her series.

i should have dnf’d i didn’t like the writing style and i didn’t think the characters relationships were fleshed out enough for them to be acting they way they were. interesting magic system but just dragged on a bit too much for me.