Untamed Growth

The blurb for my upcoming novel, Bad Concubine, is below. Please add it to your reading list.

Many years later, whenever Lu Nanqiao thought back to that time, she was still filled with emotion. Cheng Ya was a quiet, clever, and unusual woman. For half her life, Lu Nanqiao had painted her portrait, yet Cheng Ya always managed to surprise her.

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Everyone knew there was a fool in Class Four, Year Two of high school. She was scruffy, with black and red smudges always on her face. She hardly ever changed clothes, never ate snacks, and got terrible grades... She had almost no redeeming qualities. Many people might not even remember her full name, but Lu Nanqiao did. Her name was Cheng Ya.

At first, Lu Nanqiao thought of the fool just as all the other students did. That was, until the previous night, when her mother told her that there really was someone mentally ill in the Cheng family, but it wasn't Cheng Ya.

Cheng Ya's father, Cheng Mingliang, suffered from severe mental illness. When he had an episode, he was like a raging gorilla, trying to smash, break, or beat everything in sight, including his own daughter.

That day, when the other students made fun of Cheng Ya again, Lu Nanqiao didn't laugh at her in her heart. She wanted to... get closer to her...

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Without Lu Nanqiao, Cheng Ya might never have escaped her bleak life. She was the only ray of light in Cheng Ya's life for many years, shielding her from attacks coming from every direction. Cheng Ya wanted to... make Lu Nanqiao hers...

Blurb for the upcoming novel Bad Concubine

Long ago, when carriages were slow and letters took ages to arrive, the concubine entered the household just as the bride reached her parents' home.

Long ago, when carriages were slow and letters took ages to arrive, the husband died in a hurry before she even made it home.

Long ago, when carriages...

To hell with slow carriages and distant letters! Qin Mingyue stayed up all night reading a female-led novel called The Ballad of General Qingluan. She loved the story overall, but the heroine's backstory was far too ridiculous.

The heroine's family had been living a happy, ordinary life, until her grandparents took advantage of her mother visiting her family to force a concubine on her father. The matchmaker had praised the girl to the skies, calling her respectable and of good background. But the concubine's brother was a bully. Less than three days after she entered the household, he beat the heroine's father to death and angered her grandparents to death. Less than three months after the heroine's mother returned, the concubine found a way to kill her too. The concubine took the heroine's family's vast fortune and lived in luxury, while the poor little heroine had no choice but to live at her mercy.

Before bed, Qin Mingyue sighed that the novel had gone to absurd lengths to give its heroine a tragic, rage-filled backstory.

The next day, she woke up in a swaying carriage, with a six- or seven-year-old girl beside her calling, "Mother, we're home."

Just like that, Qin Mingyue had become the heroine's mother, who died young.

The concubine, Madam Liu, was already waiting outside the carriage. Her foxlike eyes seemed to hook people, as if ready to drain them to the bone and steal their souls. Her coarse mourning clothes could not hide her voluptuous figure. With a slender, sinuous waist that swayed with every step, she approached to pay her respects to the mistress of the household.

The male guests who had come to pay their respects could barely tear their eyes away.

Qin Mingyue immediately decided she would teach Madam Liu how to behave, on the heroine's behalf!

Theme: Keep your spirits high!