When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain (Singing Hills Cycle #2)

From Locus and Ignyte finalist, Crawford Award winner, and bestselling author Nghi Vo comes the second installment in a Hugo Award-winning series

A stunning gem of a novella that explores the complexity and layers of storytelling and celebrates the wonder of queer love. I could read about Chih recording tales forever. — Samantha Shannon, New York Times bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree

Dangerous, subtle, unexpected and familiar, angry and ferocious and hopeful. . . . The Empress of Salt and Fortune is a remarkable accomplishment of storytelling. — NPR

The cleric Chih finds themself and their companions at the mercy of a band of fierce tigers who ache with hunger. To stay alive until the mammoths can save them, Chih must unwind the intricate, layered story of the tiger and her scholar lover — a woman of courage, intelligence, and beauty — and discover how truth can survive becoming history.

Nghi Vo returns to the empire of Ahn and The Singing Hills Cycle in When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain, a mesmerizing, lush standalone follow-up to The Empress of Salt and Fortune.

The Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle

The Empress of Salt and Fortune
When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain
Into the Riverlands

The novellas of The Singing Hills Cycle are linked by the cleric Chih, but may be read in any order, with each story serving as an entry point.

"So good I want to marry it." — Martha Wells, New York Times bestselling author of The Murderbot Diaries

"You don't have to read Nghi Vo's debut in order to follow this second short novel, but you'll want to! Feminist, layered and queer AF, Nghi Vo's storytelling will mesmerize you. You should probably just read them both." — Ms. Magazine

"Dazzling....Readers who missed Vo's debut will have no trouble following the second leg of Chih's travels, and those returning will be pleased to sink into another lush, sophisticated story of queer love and survival." — Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

Nghi Vo is the author of the novels Siren Queen and The Chosen and the Beautiful, as well as the acclaimed novellas When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain and The Empress of Salt and Fortune, a Locus and Ignyte Award finalist and the winner of the Crawford Award and the Hugo Award. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind.