MAY !!! Summer days are just around the corner, and it's time to start celebrating that glorious ball of fire in the sky — this month, we're reading Shelley Parker-Chan's She Who Became the Sun !!

China, 1345 — the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty rules, with rebellion creeping on the horizon. In a peasant village, a young boy's fate of greatness is foretold, while his sister is told she will be nothing. But as the lone survivor of a bandit attack, the girl takes her brother's identity, Zhu Chongba, to seek refuge in the walls of a monastery. Here, she begins to challenge the role of a woman in the world and learns the power of following her own ambition. And after her sanctuary is destroyed for supporting the rebellion, Zhu takes the chance to secure her brother's abandoned greatness — and outrun her own fate. 

From peasant to monk to war hero to emperor, this book is part one in Shelly's queer retelling of the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty. It's a sweeping historical fantasy that centres an unlikely hero to explore queer desire, the need to belong, and the very nature of fate itself. 

I'm sorry, but TOLKEIN WHOMST?!