The Burning God is the third installment in a Chinese-history inspired epic fantasy trilogy about empire, warfare, shamanism, and opium.

Kuang’s Poppy War series, the saga of a young shaman fighting to bring the old gods back to her homeland, comes to a striking close in this gritty finale... Kuang pointedly underlines the ambiguous moral choices and personal costs of the path toward victory and lasting peace, sparing neither characters nor readers from the horrors and consequences of war. The result is a satisfying if not happy end to the series.

This installment dwells heavily on the devastating realities of war and the costs of leading a nation in crisis but does not sink into overly grotesque meditations—or perhaps we, along with Rin, have become desensitized and hardened. Ultimately, despite the epic scope of the plot, the novel hinges on the relationships between Rin and those closest to her: A nation may rise or fall and thousands may lose their homes or starve in the process, but their fate depends not on magic from the divine plane but on simple, fallible people… A dark and devastating conclusion that transcends its roots in historical fact to examine brutal truths.