What if I told you that the feeling we call love is actually the feeling of metaphysical recognition, when your soul remembers someone from a previous life? This tantalizing question forms the philosophical backbone of Justinian Huang’s debut novel, The Emperor and the Endless Palace, a genre-bending romantasy that attempts to weave together three distinct timelines in service of an epic love story that transcends mortality itself.
Huang’s novel follows two souls—Liu Xin and Dong Xian—as they encounter each other across millennia, caught in what the author presents as an endless cycle of reunion, passion, and tragic separation. The narrative jumps between 4 BCE in the treacherous Endless Palace of ancient China, 1740 in a mysterious mountain inn where supernatural forces lurk in shadows, and present-day Los Angeles where college student River meets the enigmatic Joey at an underground rave.
Three Lives, One Love Story
Ancient Palace Intrigue: 4 BCE
The strongest thread of Huang’s narrative tapestry unfolds in ancient China, where ambitious courtier Dong Xian navigates the deadly politics of the Endless Palace. Tasked by the Grand Empress Dowager Fu to seduce the young Emperor Liu Xin, Dong Xian finds himself genuinely drawn to the lonely ruler. Huang’s prose here crackles with authentic period detail and political tension—the machinations feel genuinely dangerous, and the slow-burn romance between emperor and courtier develops with careful psychological complexity.
The author demonstrates remarkable skill in capturing the formal language and ritualistic nature of ancient court life. When Dong Xian reflects, “Truth doesn’t matter here in the Court, and ethics are rarely rewarded. To survive here, we move to the current of the ocean, knowing we cannot dictate the waves,” Huang reveals both character motivation and the broader themes of powerlessness that will echo across all three timelines.
Supernatural Mountain Terror: 1740
The 1740 storyline featuring innkeeper He Shican proves the most atmospheric but uneven portion of the novel. When the mysterious boy Huang Jiulang arrives seeking a rare medicine called the Primordial Bolus for his allegedly sick grandmother, Shican enlists the help of his friend, the scholarly doctor Qi Yewang. What follows is a supernatural horror sequence that feels almost like a different genre entirely—complete with shapeshifting fox spirits and mystical jade stones.
While Huang’s descriptive powers shine in crafting the eerie forest setting and building dread, this timeline suffers from pacing issues. The supernatural elements, while ultimately connected to the overarching reincarnation mythology, feel somewhat disconnected from the emotional core that drives the other two storylines.
Modern Love and Billionaire Machinations: Present Day
In contemporary Los Angeles, River (the current incarnation of Liu Xin) meets Joey (Dong Xian reborn) at the underground club Peril, and their instant connection drives the most accessible portion of the narrative. Huang captures the intoxicating feeling of immediate attraction with sensual, present-tense prose that makes readers feel the electric charge between the two young men.
However, this timeline becomes increasingly convoluted as it introduces tech billionaire Winston Chow and an elaborate heist involving the legendary Heirloom Seal of the Realm. While Winston serves as an intriguing antagonist—powerful, manipulative, and mysteriously connected to Joey’s past—the thriller elements sometimes overwhelm the central love story.
The Weight of Memory and Identity
The novel’s central conceit revolves around the concept of “Remembering”—the ability to retain memories from past lives. Joey carries the burden of recalling all their previous incarnations, while River remains blissfully unaware until their worlds collide. This creates a fascinating power dynamic that Huang explores with genuine psychological insight.
“To Remember is a heavy burden,” Joey explains, and Huang successfully conveys both the romantic appeal and genuine tragedy of carrying millennia of love and loss. The scenes where Joey attempts to explain their cosmic connection to a skeptical River crackle with emotional tension, particularly when River initially assumes Joey needs psychiatric help.
Ambitious Scope, Uneven Execution
Huang demonstrates remarkable ambition in crafting a narrative that spans over two millennia, and when the novel succeeds, it achieves moments of genuine transcendence. The jade bracelet that connects all three timelines—revealed to be a fragment of the legendary Heirloom Seal—serves as both a clever plot device and potent symbol of broken wholeness seeking restoration.
The author’s background clearly informs the rich cultural details and authentic voice he brings to depicting Asian gay male relationships across different historical periods. There’s particular power in how Huang explores themes of belonging and identity, both cultural and sexual, through characters who exist on various margins of their respective societies.
However, the novel’s reach occasionally exceeds its grasp. The three timelines vary significantly in both quality and tonal consistency. While the ancient palace intrigue maintains sustained tension and the modern romance provides emotional accessibility, the 1740 supernatural storyline feels somewhat underdeveloped, serving more as mystical connective tissue than a fully realized narrative thread.
Language and Style: Beauty Amid Inconsistency
Huang’s prose style shifts to match each timeline, demonstrating impressive range but sometimes creating jarring transitions. The formal, ritualistic language of the ancient Chinese court contrasts sharply with the contemporary, sensual descriptions of modern Los Angeles club culture.
When describing River’s first encounter with Joey, Huang writes with palpable sensuality: “He inhaled deeply and he smells like sex on fresh linens.” These moments of visceral attraction feel authentic and immediate. However, some of the supernatural sequences rely too heavily on exposition-heavy dialogue that can feel forced.
The author’s decision to write the contemporary sections in present tense creates urgency and immediacy, while the historical sections benefit from more traditional past-tense narration. This stylistic choice generally serves the story well, though occasional shifts between timeframes can feel abrupt.
Cultural Authenticity and Representation
One of the novel’s greatest strengths lies in Huang’s authentic portrayal of Asian gay male experiences across different cultural contexts. From the coded language of desire in ancient imperial China to the contemporary Asian-American club scene in Los Angeles, the author brings cultural specificity that feels lived-in rather than researched.
The novel doesn’t shy away from examining the intersection of cultural identity and sexual orientation, particularly in scenes where characters navigate family expectations and social pressures. Winston’s manipulation of Joey through financial dependence reads as a particularly sharp commentary on power dynamics within both gay relationships and Asian-American economic realities.
The Mythology of Love
At its core, The Emperor and the Endless Palace asks whether true love can transcend death itself—and whether such transcendence might actually be a curse rather than a blessing. Huang’s exploration of reincarnation as both romantic fantasy and existential trap provides the novel’s most compelling philosophical framework.
The idea that souls might be bound together across lifetimes, destined to find each other repeatedly only to lose each other again, transforms the traditional “happily ever after” romance into something more complex and potentially tragic. When Joey declares, “I have lived nearly one hundred lifetimes. I have wandered every corner of this earth… I fear nothing that might get in the way of my mission to reclaim the Heirloom Seal,” Huang successfully conveys both the romantic appeal and genuine burden of eternal love.
Where the Novel Stumbles
Despite its many strengths, the novel suffers from several significant issues that prevent it from fully realizing its ambitious vision:
- Pacing Problems: The shifts between timelines, while thematically resonant, create narrative momentum issues. Just as readers become invested in one storyline, Huang pivots to another era, sometimes breaking emotional continuity.
- Uneven Character Development: While River and Joey receive substantial psychological development, supporting characters like Calvin and Garden in the contemporary timeline feel somewhat underutilized. Winston, despite his central importance to the plot, remains more plot device than fully realized antagonist.
- Genre Confusion: The novel struggles to balance its various genre elements—palace intrigue, supernatural horror, contemporary romance, and heist thriller. While this eclecticism can be exciting, it sometimes leaves readers unsure of what kind of story they’re reading.
Resolution Issues: The novel’s ending, while emotionally satisfying for the central couple, leaves several plot threads feeling underdeveloped or rushed, particularly regarding the supernatural elements and Winston’s ultimate fate.
Comparisons and Context
The Emperor and the Endless Palace will appeal to readers who enjoyed recent genre-blending works like The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka or The Midnight Girls by Alicia Jasinska, though Huang’s work is more grounded in historical realism than pure fantasy. The novel’s exploration of reincarnated love echoes themes found in Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, though with a more focused romantic core.
For readers seeking LGBTQ+ fantasy romance, this work sits alongside novels like Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune or Red: A Crayon’s Story by Michael Hall, though Huang’s work is considerably more adult in content and themes.
As a debut novel, The Emperor and the Endless Palace establishes Huang as a voice worth watching in the emerging genre of Asian-American romantasy. While this first outing shows the growing pains typical of ambitious debut novels, it also demonstrates remarkable potential for future works.
Final Verdict
The Emperor and the Endless Palace succeeds as an ambitious, culturally rich exploration of love that transcends time, even as it occasionally stumbles under the weight of its own complexity. Huang has crafted something genuinely unique in the romantasy landscape—a novel that takes both its romantic and fantastical elements seriously while grounding them in authentic cultural detail and emotional truth.
The novel’s flaws—uneven pacing, tonal inconsistencies, and occasional plot convolutions—don’t diminish its considerable achievements. When Huang’s prose soars, as in the tender moments between emperor and courtier or the electric attraction between River and Joey, the novel achieves the kind of emotional transcendence it seeks to depict.
For readers willing to embrace its genre-bending ambitions and occasional structural weaknesses, The Emperor and the Endless Palace offers a reading experience that’s both intellectually engaging and emotionally satisfying. It’s a promising debut that suggests even greater works to come from an author clearly committed to expanding the boundaries of romantasy fiction.
Similar Books You Might Enjoy
- The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison – For palace intrigue and political maneuvering in a fantasy setting
- The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller – For mythological gay romance that spans lifetimes
- The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon – For epic fantasy with diverse representation and complex worldbuilding
- Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas – For contemporary LGBTQ+ fantasy with cultural authenticity
- She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan – For queer historical fantasy set in ancient China