When Fiat.Luxury reviewed When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain I went to my library to put in a hold and discovered that we had both it and the first in the cycle, The Empress of Salt & Fortune available as audiobooks. I was on the hunt for audiobooks to keep me company on my commute so instead of just requesting When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain I went ahead and requested The Empress of Salt & Fortune as well.
The Empress of Salt & Fortune 
I don’t know that I knew what to expect when I dove into this novella. I had read the Goodreads synopsis which describes the book as telling the story of a young royal woman from the far north whose family has been vanquished is sent south for a political marriage. Her handmaiden, Rabbit, was sold by her parents to the palace because they could not pay their taxes. The pair stick together to survive. What the synopsis didn’t prepare me for was that there was a frame layer to the narrative, as Rabbit recounts the tale of the rise of In-yo to Chih, a traveling cleric from Singing Hills in search of stories.
Once I got to the end my overall impression was that this was a crossing point in which Vo was laying out her larger world – leaving hints and impressions of stories within the world she had just introduced to us. Perhaps that is why this one was only a 3-star read for me; I never really felt that I sunk into the story we were being told by Rabbit. Maybe that’s because I’m missing some of the base layers that Vo is playing with, not being as familiar with Chinese mythology and history as I probably could be. Either way, I felt largely at a remove from the action of the story, needing to listen very hard to the audio to try to make sure I was accurately following along with both timelines of the story. The audio, it should be noted, was well produced, but I don’t think it was the best way for me to engage with this story.
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain 
Following my slightly lackluster experience with The Empress of Salt & Fortune I took a break before requesting When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain. I decided to give the audio version another shot and felt I was able to connect better with the story this time around. Perhaps due to the structure being slightly more straightforward.
Cleric Chih continues their travels to record stories, this time focusing on mammoths. Si-Yu is their guide, taking them out on a mammoth ride where they run into trouble in the form of three shape shifting tiger sisters who are quite hungry and Chih and Si-Yu would make an excellent meal. What follows is Chih convincing the sisters to listen to them tell the human version of a love story known to both groups with the idea that the tigers can correct the misinformation in the human version, which is part of Chih’s mission from the Singing Hills. A version of the 1,001 Nights tale happens, as a lovely queer story is unfolded and notably corrected, in the telling.
This one was much more my speed, but it still didn’t break into 4-star territory for me. I loved that this is a queernorm story (it helps fulfill a Read Harder task for me this year) but I did notice that the audiobook narrator Cindy Kay didn’t differentiate between the various voices enough, and I think that hampered my enjoyment a bit. If I continue with the series, I’ll probably switch over to dead tree format for better readability.