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The Scarlet Ball
Enter a dark and magical world of ballrooms and bloodshed in the gripping new Gilded Age fantasy from the multi-award winning author of
The City in Glass
, perfect for fans of M L Wang's
Blood Over Bright Haven
and
Mexican Gothic
by Silvia Moreno-Garcia.
‘Filled with demons and witchcraft, scheming and seduction... It's nothing short of wonderful.'
J.M. Miro, Sunday Times bestselling author of Ordinary Monsters
'Clever, vicious, and gorgeous'
Ava Reid, Sunday Times bestselling author of Innamorata
--------
Judith Ban – convent girl, courtesan, and failed thief – is looking for her next identity. She’s no stranger to wealth or danger, but the glitter of New York’s Gilded Age hides a darkness even she has never imagined. Here, the city’s elite maintain their grip through opulent balls, whispered rituals, and marriages with demons hungry for human devotion.
When she crosses paths with the formidable matriarch of the Howard family, Judith is offered an irresistible to take the place of a missing debutante in the coming season. With Miss Iphigenia Marshall’s face stitched over her own, Judith becomes white, rich, and ready to risk it all. If she can hold onto her charm, her wits, and her life, her reward will be a husband with undreamt-of power.
But in a world ruled by appetite and ambition, the most dangerous hunger of all might be her own.
--------
PRAISE FOR NGHI
'Nghi Vo’s perfectly honed prose embodies the intoxicating, knife-sharp dazzle of cruel wealth and hollow people. This book is as sharp and strange as the taste of a licked silver spoon – it’s breathtaking.' – Shelley Parker-Chan (on The Chosen and the Beautiful)
'Searing and seductive... the kind of book that leaves you wrecked on its shores.' – Alix E. Harrow (on Siren Queen)
'Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today.' – Taylor Jenkins Reid (on Siren Queen)
‘Filled with demons and witchcraft, scheming and seduction... It's nothing short of wonderful.'
J.M. Miro, Sunday Times bestselling author of Ordinary Monsters
'Clever, vicious, and gorgeous'
Ava Reid, Sunday Times bestselling author of Innamorata
--------
Judith Ban – convent girl, courtesan, and failed thief – is looking for her next identity. She’s no stranger to wealth or danger, but the glitter of New York’s Gilded Age hides a darkness even she has never imagined. Here, the city’s elite maintain their grip through opulent balls, whispered rituals, and marriages with demons hungry for human devotion.
When she crosses paths with the formidable matriarch of the Howard family, Judith is offered an irresistible to take the place of a missing debutante in the coming season. With Miss Iphigenia Marshall’s face stitched over her own, Judith becomes white, rich, and ready to risk it all. If she can hold onto her charm, her wits, and her life, her reward will be a husband with undreamt-of power.
But in a world ruled by appetite and ambition, the most dangerous hunger of all might be her own.
--------
PRAISE FOR NGHI
'Nghi Vo’s perfectly honed prose embodies the intoxicating, knife-sharp dazzle of cruel wealth and hollow people. This book is as sharp and strange as the taste of a licked silver spoon – it’s breathtaking.' – Shelley Parker-Chan (on The Chosen and the Beautiful)
'Searing and seductive... the kind of book that leaves you wrecked on its shores.' – Alix E. Harrow (on Siren Queen)
'Nghi Vo is one of the most original writers we have today.' – Taylor Jenkins Reid (on Siren Queen)
318 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 6, 2026
About the author
Nghi Vo
43 books4,643 followersNghi Vo is the author of the acclaimed novellas The Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain. 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. The Chosen and the Beautiful is her debut novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 287 reviews
October 1, 2026
thank you to nghi vo, who writes 1-2 weird short fantasy books every year for me specifically.
well. i guess we took this year off.
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
well. i guess we took this year off.
(review to come / thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
September 29, 2026
Nghi Vo truly confirms her status as an all-time favorite author of mine with every new book that she writes. She can write about clerics travelling the land and collecting stories, about angels and demons and their eternal love-language of city building and now also about the many dangerous steps to achieving a demon marriage. Her stories always capture me so completely and I hang on to her every word like with no other author. That's of course also due to her intoxicating writing style which fits the decadent Gilded Age New York setting of this story so very perfectly. It's a world that's both magical and luxurious, but only for the powerful elite which the protagonist Judith Ban is definitely not part of. She's a shopgirl of mixed heritage and she knows what it's like to live an unsafe life full of coldness, exhaustion and hunger. She works every job that keeps her fed and so it's not unusual for her to make a delivery to a wealthy family's house. However, it is very unusual that she catches the ruthless matriarch's attention and gets introduced to a dark world of demonic marriages and dangerous dances. Only after a white face is stitched over her own and she takes the place of the family's granddaughter, though. This premise had such dark and gothic fairytale vibes to me, but the actual story is less whimsical and more tense overall. It's a story of power and control, and the selfish people who want these things for themselves no matter the cost. Even if they have to tame monsters and fear to be eaten or shredded to pieces in the process. I haven't read all of Nghi Vo's books yet, but this surely must be her most horror-adjacent one and I think that her writing takes very well to visceral scenes. I'm also thrilled about this book taking spins on plenty of popular fantasy plot elements. You might call this a monster romance for instance, but it's about power and never about love and the monsters will definitely eat their brides if they are not careful and are not some brooding faerie guys. I applaud Nghi Vo for thinking of something so original for the creatures in this novel, and it made reading about them so much more intriguing. I also found it unusual how magic was so naturally woven into the world without ever really being at the forefront and I took every little detail in with great interest. The only criticism I have is about Judith herself. I do like her as a straightforward character, but I would have loved to explore her personality and her past more thoroughly. I especially thought that her race and heritage would play a bigger role in this story, but in the end Judith never faced the issues that I thought she would. But maybe this criticism is just my way of saying that I would have easily read 200 more pages of this story, even though everything wrapped up nicely here. Once again, I was completely hooked by a book from this author and I can only recommend to check out her works. Every single one of them is a stunning read.
Huge thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone | Del Rey for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.
Huge thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Cornerstone | Del Rey for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Okayyyyy, this was an incredible standalone.
A dark and gothic fantasy set in Gilded Age New York with vampirism demons.
Judith is a failed thief and courtesan who strikes a deal with the elite Howard family to assume the identity of their missing debutante granddaughter.
This is an exploration of power, identity, wealth, and control. Judith has the missing debutante’s face physically stitched over her own. She swaps the danger of being an Oriental, French lone girl that gets used to a white young woman with respectful opportunities (if you count demons courting you as respectful).
When you tell a story about something that happens to you, you flatten it. Instead of memory—hot, cutting, strong enough to fetch you a blow that will put you on your back for a week—it becomes words. The words are a bag that help you to carry it.
Nghi Vo makes the metaphor literal: trading a woman’s body, her blood, for a man’s protection. It’s constantly a give even as you win - women exerting power in the world through their husbands.
I have found Nghi Vo’s earlier works lacking in depth, engagement and connection. Here, you truly get into the desperate and arrogant kind of Judith.
The atmosphere is gritty and glamorous, quite like the reality of Gilded age New York.
This was almost five stars, but I wish there was a bit more depth to the supporting cast. This is very internal and I wish we got more from the characters around Judith.
Arc gifted by Penguin Random House, Cornerstone.
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A dark and gothic fantasy set in Gilded Age New York with vampirism demons.
Judith is a failed thief and courtesan who strikes a deal with the elite Howard family to assume the identity of their missing debutante granddaughter.
This is an exploration of power, identity, wealth, and control. Judith has the missing debutante’s face physically stitched over her own. She swaps the danger of being an Oriental, French lone girl that gets used to a white young woman with respectful opportunities (if you count demons courting you as respectful).
When you tell a story about something that happens to you, you flatten it. Instead of memory—hot, cutting, strong enough to fetch you a blow that will put you on your back for a week—it becomes words. The words are a bag that help you to carry it.
Nghi Vo makes the metaphor literal: trading a woman’s body, her blood, for a man’s protection. It’s constantly a give even as you win - women exerting power in the world through their husbands.
I have found Nghi Vo’s earlier works lacking in depth, engagement and connection. Here, you truly get into the desperate and arrogant kind of Judith.
The atmosphere is gritty and glamorous, quite like the reality of Gilded age New York.
This was almost five stars, but I wish there was a bit more depth to the supporting cast. This is very internal and I wish we got more from the characters around Judith.
Arc gifted by Penguin Random House, Cornerstone.
Bookstagram
Tiktok
Want to Read
March 18, 2026bro you know i'll read whatever she writes but the plague of bad covers is killing me. what is this.
Read
April 12, 2026I couldn't be more thrilled to share the blurb I wrote for this beauty with you all!
“After reading The Scarlet Ball, one has to wonder whether Vo is a witch herself, perhaps married not to a flood or wildfire but a demon of stories and genius. The Scarlet Ball is so utterly original, so spellbinding, so effortlessly plotted and so gorgeously written, it's hard to believe a mere mortal could write it, and yet she did, and I stand in awe of it and her."
“After reading The Scarlet Ball, one has to wonder whether Vo is a witch herself, perhaps married not to a flood or wildfire but a demon of stories and genius. The Scarlet Ball is so utterly original, so spellbinding, so effortlessly plotted and so gorgeously written, it's hard to believe a mere mortal could write it, and yet she did, and I stand in awe of it and her."
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This was delicious. A gothic fantasy set in the Gilded Age with a dark romance at the heart of it and a smart heroine who survives no matter the cost, while also asking questions about race, privilege, and wealth? Incredible.
The Scarlet Ball follows a young Vietnamese woman with a complicated past who doesn't know what she's in for when she makes a dangerous deal. Her role? To impersonate the granddaughter of her benefactress at bloodsoaked balls where the daughters of the wealthy (and white) elite compete to gain immense power through marriage to demons. If Judith can survive, she will have enough money to live freely, but to compete she must have another woman's face literally stitched onto her own. And there are no guarantees...
It's a smart and incisive novel that blends gothic horror and dark romance, pulling you into a terrifying and exhilarating world. Also there are a couple minor details that make me think this might be set in the same universe as The Chosen and the Beautiful, which is fun for fans of this author (like me!). This is the perfect fall read, at once creepy and quite sexy. The audio narration is fantastic. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
The Scarlet Ball follows a young Vietnamese woman with a complicated past who doesn't know what she's in for when she makes a dangerous deal. Her role? To impersonate the granddaughter of her benefactress at bloodsoaked balls where the daughters of the wealthy (and white) elite compete to gain immense power through marriage to demons. If Judith can survive, she will have enough money to live freely, but to compete she must have another woman's face literally stitched onto her own. And there are no guarantees...
It's a smart and incisive novel that blends gothic horror and dark romance, pulling you into a terrifying and exhilarating world. Also there are a couple minor details that make me think this might be set in the same universe as The Chosen and the Beautiful, which is fun for fans of this author (like me!). This is the perfect fall read, at once creepy and quite sexy. The audio narration is fantastic. I received a copy of this book for review from the publisher, all opinions are my own.
September 29, 2026
Whoa. That was phenomenal.
I found it nearly impossible to put this book down once I started and *might* have put off starting work today so I could finish the rest of this book.
I’m honestly at a loss for words to describe this book…
Dark but glittering perhaps? Safety but at what cost? Love all consuming, literally.
Just go read this book already. Trust me this is not one to miss!
Audio Narration: 5/5
Narrator: Natalie Naudus
Length: 11 hrs 21 mins
Style: Single narration, single pov
Thoughts: Wow. A knockout performance from Natalie Naudus, but honestly thats no surprise. She delivers every time. Great voice variation, consistent pacing, dramatic emphasis in all the right places! SO GOOD!
5⭐️| IG | TikTok |
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted book. All opinions are my own.
I found it nearly impossible to put this book down once I started and *might* have put off starting work today so I could finish the rest of this book.
I’m honestly at a loss for words to describe this book…
Dark but glittering perhaps? Safety but at what cost? Love all consuming, literally.
Just go read this book already. Trust me this is not one to miss!
Audio Narration: 5/5
Narrator: Natalie Naudus
Length: 11 hrs 21 mins
Style: Single narration, single pov
Thoughts: Wow. A knockout performance from Natalie Naudus, but honestly thats no surprise. She delivers every time. Great voice variation, consistent pacing, dramatic emphasis in all the right places! SO GOOD!
5⭐️| IG | TikTok |
Thank you to the publisher for the gifted book. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
It's a book for monster fuckers, but if the monster you want to fuck is a wildfire or a forest or a mudslide or a storm.
This is already on track to be my favourite new book of the year. It's brilliant: fun and weird and sexy and full of ideas about the cruelty of the world and what it takes to survive. Most of the time when I read a book that has romantic elements like this one does, I have a rough sense of where it's going, what the end-goal is, and I simply never did here. It kept me on my toes, kept me laughing, kept me wondering at the beauty of the prose and the delight of the ideas.
I have complained previously about Vo's books that they leave me wanting more: I find her Singing Hills novellas a little bit plot-light for me, and while The City in Glass was excellent, it left me wanting just a little bit more character development and a little bit more time with the world. The Scarlet Ball leaves me fully sated. All the core cast of characters (and plenty of the bit players) are painted beautifully, fleshed out and understandable even if they are inhuman and incomprehensible. I have held up American Elsewhere as an exemplar of making the unknowable extradimensional Lovecraftian horrors relatable and understandable, and The Scarlet Ball does that as well; it's weird, the way The Library at Mount Char or a China Mieville novel is weird, full of cruel and beautiful magic and the sense that the world is wider than can be contained within the pages of a single book.
In Twilight, Stephanie Meyer asked what it would be like for a mortal woman to become the target of affection for a beautiful, powerful, immortal man, and then went on to mostly use it as a wish fulfillment fantasy and not examine it any more deeply. Vo, on the other hand, takes the time to look at the way that any woman being pursued by a man, even a human one, needs to manage the threat of violence and a societal power disparity, and the text makes it clear that our protagonist being aware of the danger to her life from interacting with a man is not something that is a new experience simply because that man is a literal demon. It's a great exploration of the idea of women exerting power in the world through their husbands, and it does that thing I love so much about speculative fiction where it makes a metaphor literal, in this case the yoking of a man to one's will and the trading of one's body for power. It's worth remembering that that sort of arrangement can only work until it doesn't, and that playing those games and winning for a while still requires living in a world where those sorts of power structures exist and do people harm. There's also examination of racial tokenisation and the experience of interacting with a caricature of oneself, as our narrator is an outsider again and again.
For all that thematic meat, it's worth noting that this is a book which is a whole hell of a lot of fun. We get to have our cake and eat it too: getting a critique of a world of opulence doesn't stop us from getting the wish fulfillment fantasy of living in that world of opulence, with beautiful houses and clothes and food abounding. Getting a critique of upper crust relationship dynamics, the sort of thing that Natalie Wynn calls Default Heterosexual Sado-Masochism, doesn't stop this from delighting the reader with a genuinely steamy romance. If you like proper fantasy world-building, if you like fairy-tale romance, if you like a thrill to your novels, you'll find it all here. I had a huge amount of fun reading this book, and I'm sure that I'm going to re-read it some time soon.
This is already on track to be my favourite new book of the year. It's brilliant: fun and weird and sexy and full of ideas about the cruelty of the world and what it takes to survive. Most of the time when I read a book that has romantic elements like this one does, I have a rough sense of where it's going, what the end-goal is, and I simply never did here. It kept me on my toes, kept me laughing, kept me wondering at the beauty of the prose and the delight of the ideas.
I have complained previously about Vo's books that they leave me wanting more: I find her Singing Hills novellas a little bit plot-light for me, and while The City in Glass was excellent, it left me wanting just a little bit more character development and a little bit more time with the world. The Scarlet Ball leaves me fully sated. All the core cast of characters (and plenty of the bit players) are painted beautifully, fleshed out and understandable even if they are inhuman and incomprehensible. I have held up American Elsewhere as an exemplar of making the unknowable extradimensional Lovecraftian horrors relatable and understandable, and The Scarlet Ball does that as well; it's weird, the way The Library at Mount Char or a China Mieville novel is weird, full of cruel and beautiful magic and the sense that the world is wider than can be contained within the pages of a single book.
In Twilight, Stephanie Meyer asked what it would be like for a mortal woman to become the target of affection for a beautiful, powerful, immortal man, and then went on to mostly use it as a wish fulfillment fantasy and not examine it any more deeply. Vo, on the other hand, takes the time to look at the way that any woman being pursued by a man, even a human one, needs to manage the threat of violence and a societal power disparity, and the text makes it clear that our protagonist being aware of the danger to her life from interacting with a man is not something that is a new experience simply because that man is a literal demon. It's a great exploration of the idea of women exerting power in the world through their husbands, and it does that thing I love so much about speculative fiction where it makes a metaphor literal, in this case the yoking of a man to one's will and the trading of one's body for power. It's worth remembering that that sort of arrangement can only work until it doesn't, and that playing those games and winning for a while still requires living in a world where those sorts of power structures exist and do people harm. There's also examination of racial tokenisation and the experience of interacting with a caricature of oneself, as our narrator is an outsider again and again.
For all that thematic meat, it's worth noting that this is a book which is a whole hell of a lot of fun. We get to have our cake and eat it too: getting a critique of a world of opulence doesn't stop us from getting the wish fulfillment fantasy of living in that world of opulence, with beautiful houses and clothes and food abounding. Getting a critique of upper crust relationship dynamics, the sort of thing that Natalie Wynn calls Default Heterosexual Sado-Masochism, doesn't stop this from delighting the reader with a genuinely steamy romance. If you like proper fantasy world-building, if you like fairy-tale romance, if you like a thrill to your novels, you'll find it all here. I had a huge amount of fun reading this book, and I'm sure that I'm going to re-read it some time soon.
Want to Read
December 8, 2025(me 🤝🏻 everything Nghi Vo writes)
Definitely one of my most anticipated releases of 2026!
Definitely one of my most anticipated releases of 2026!
Want to Read
April 2, 2026I GOT AN ARC LET'S GOOOOOOO
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oh my god is this going to be in the vein of siren queen (aka my favorite favorite nghi vo book)? GIVE IT TO MEEEEE
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oh my god is this going to be in the vein of siren queen (aka my favorite favorite nghi vo book)? GIVE IT TO MEEEEE
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
🖤 Gilded Age
👠 Classism
🖤 Faustian Bargain
👠 Demons as Suitors
🖤 Face-Swap FMC
This was such an exquisite and beautifully written story. It's a bit of a slow burn, but it draws on historical romance, a Faustian bargain, class and racial hierarchies, and the FMC’s almost ravenous, desperate hunger in this incredible standalone. Five stars.
•
Judith (FMC) strikes a deal with one of New York's elite families—the Howard family—to stand in for the matriarch's missing granddaughter and debutante, Ginny Marshall. A replica of Ginny's face is stitched onto Judith's every night, giving her access to the elite debutante season, where women vie for the love and devotion of ravenous demon men. In exchange for taking on the inherent risk, Mrs. Howard promises Judith a life of luxury and wealth at the end of her tenure or upon Ginny's return.
•
Honestly, there is SO much to unpack in this story. However, let's start with the writing. Vo's prose is incandescent and lush, painting vivid pictures with every phrase. It's gorgeous. The scene-setting is so visceral; the writing is opulent. From start to finish, this book reads like an absolute dream.
And then we have the subversion of popular story elements. It’s historical romance, but instead of merely amplifying the predatory nature of high-society rituals, the girls are bargaining with literal demons. Then we have Judith, our gothic heroine, who is anything BUT: she is cunning, she is fierce, she is extremely self-aware, and she will burn it all down, wearing the face of a white woman in lieu of her own: granting her access to places she had never imagined. We also have a possessive MMC—but instead of fawning, Judith exerts absolute dominance over him at every turn.
I'm not sure how Nghi Vo managed to pack so much into this story, but it absolutely works, and it's stunning. This would be a great book to reread because, admittedly, on this first read, I was so enamoured by the lush prose that I know I missed details and symbolism I would absolutely pick up on during a reread. It is a bit of a slow burn, with a lot of intentional push and pull, making for an absolutely gorgeous story.
This was so unique, with familiar concepts that are completely twisted, frightening descriptions, romantic flair, and a woman at the centre who refuses to back down. Simply breathtaking.
•
Thank you to Tor Publishing Group for the ARC of this book. All thoughts and feedback contained within this review are my own.
👠 Classism
🖤 Faustian Bargain
👠 Demons as Suitors
🖤 Face-Swap FMC
This was such an exquisite and beautifully written story. It's a bit of a slow burn, but it draws on historical romance, a Faustian bargain, class and racial hierarchies, and the FMC’s almost ravenous, desperate hunger in this incredible standalone. Five stars.
•
Judith (FMC) strikes a deal with one of New York's elite families—the Howard family—to stand in for the matriarch's missing granddaughter and debutante, Ginny Marshall. A replica of Ginny's face is stitched onto Judith's every night, giving her access to the elite debutante season, where women vie for the love and devotion of ravenous demon men. In exchange for taking on the inherent risk, Mrs. Howard promises Judith a life of luxury and wealth at the end of her tenure or upon Ginny's return.
•
Honestly, there is SO much to unpack in this story. However, let's start with the writing. Vo's prose is incandescent and lush, painting vivid pictures with every phrase. It's gorgeous. The scene-setting is so visceral; the writing is opulent. From start to finish, this book reads like an absolute dream.
And then we have the subversion of popular story elements. It’s historical romance, but instead of merely amplifying the predatory nature of high-society rituals, the girls are bargaining with literal demons. Then we have Judith, our gothic heroine, who is anything BUT: she is cunning, she is fierce, she is extremely self-aware, and she will burn it all down, wearing the face of a white woman in lieu of her own: granting her access to places she had never imagined. We also have a possessive MMC—but instead of fawning, Judith exerts absolute dominance over him at every turn.
I'm not sure how Nghi Vo managed to pack so much into this story, but it absolutely works, and it's stunning. This would be a great book to reread because, admittedly, on this first read, I was so enamoured by the lush prose that I know I missed details and symbolism I would absolutely pick up on during a reread. It is a bit of a slow burn, with a lot of intentional push and pull, making for an absolutely gorgeous story.
This was so unique, with familiar concepts that are completely twisted, frightening descriptions, romantic flair, and a woman at the centre who refuses to back down. Simply breathtaking.
•
Thank you to Tor Publishing Group for the ARC of this book. All thoughts and feedback contained within this review are my own.
2026
September 28, 2026Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.
ANHPI TBR
Halloween TBR
Pride TBR
ANHPI TBR
Halloween TBR
Pride TBR
September 4, 2026
Everyone needs to lock in this was fucking brilliant
Gilded Age fantasy, where among the elite walk monsters and natural disasters in the shape of men.
Caught in the wrong place and time (or the right one), Judith Ban accepts a deal without quite realising its consequences; be sewn into the skin of a white rich girl, and play the game of courting the monsters.
I had an absolute blast with this, it was grotesque and compelling and I genuinely couldn’t put it down. I read it on the train I read it in my lunch break I read it in the bedtime hours. Much like its demon lords, it devoured me.
Nghi Vo can do NO WRONG
Gilded Age fantasy, where among the elite walk monsters and natural disasters in the shape of men.
Caught in the wrong place and time (or the right one), Judith Ban accepts a deal without quite realising its consequences; be sewn into the skin of a white rich girl, and play the game of courting the monsters.
I had an absolute blast with this, it was grotesque and compelling and I genuinely couldn’t put it down. I read it on the train I read it in my lunch break I read it in the bedtime hours. Much like its demon lords, it devoured me.
Nghi Vo can do NO WRONG
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Highlights
~nightmare of manners
~hedonism as defiance
~intoxicating prose
~more solidarity between humans and demons than poor and wealthy
~Nghi Vo’s best yet
Have you ever had truly excellent red velvet cake? I mean really excellent, not the bland stuff they serve at most coffee shops. The kind that’s so rich you have to take breaks between bites, or be overwhelmed; the kind with frosting so sinfully sweet each taste feels like you’re getting away with something. The kind you linger over, because you’ll mourn when it’s gone; that turns you into something predatory, hunting down every last crumb on the plate. The kind that would get a friend stabbed with your fork, if they tried to steal a piece.
That’s The Scarlet Ball.
If you’ve read and loved Nghi Vo before, you are not ready for this book: she has outdone herself a thousandfold. If you’ve never read a Nghi Vo book before, then this is the perfect place to start, the book that will leave you addicted to her decadent prose, her wild, beautiful magic, her heroines who revel in everything they are.
Judith, Judith, Judith. Here is the protagonist I’ve been longing for, razor-sharp and ruthless with it, not just willing but able to dance with demons for her dreams. Morally-grey? Oh, in spades. She isn’t Nice, she isn’t Gentle, she is not any kind of Good Girl – she’s amoral at best, a starving tiger, wary and hungry and merciless, and I love her for all of it. I love how unabashed she is about her hunger, how untender she is with others as well as with herself, how unashamed she is of her everything. She makes me think of Lilith from Jewish folklore, that same kind of – elemental, feral freedom, the same sense of being untamed and untameable.
Which makes her such a perfect candidate for the Scarlet Ball, for the demon lords. Vo’s demons aren’t the Abrahamic kind; they’re elementals, forces of nature, natural disasters that have taken the form of men. (Been given those forms, even.) No wonder so many of the women who try for a demon husband fall; they’ve living in a world that stamps the wildness out of them, and you have to have more than a little wildness in you to be able to spar and dance and marry a wildfire, a mudslide, a flood.
(Except one of the many things Scarlet Ball does is explore the strength and power of these women, even if it’s not the strength or power we might think it is at first.)
But though she is wild, Judith is not fearless. Over and over again throughout the book, she is afraid, terrified, and that – makes her so much more vividly real than if she was contemptuous of the danger. She knows her own strength, in all senses of the word, and she knows what she’s capable of – which means she fully understands how completely outclassed she is by these wildfires and floods that look like men and want to eat her alive. That Judith is a long-time survivor enriches the whole scenario, because if she is afraid, we understand, after everything she’s been through – if she’s afraid, then we definitely should be. We can trust Judith to – accurately assess the situation she’s in, the threats to her, in a way we couldn’t if she had a more typical kind of confidence.
In so many ways, Scarlet Ball is a horror novel, and it can be difficult to decide whether the demons or New York’s ‘elite’ are the more monstrous. This is very clearly intentional. Judith is biracial – Vietnamese and French – and her poverty would put her at the bottom of the social hierarchy even if she were white; she is very, very aware of how disgusting the 1% are, and of how completely they would tear her apart if they realised she is not the mask she wears. Her terror of the demon lords is visceral, but at least they’re honest about what they are and what they want, and in a very real way they can’t help it. They’re not human and never will be. But the wealthy elite Judith’s infiltrated? What’s their excuse for the damage they do? This book is so full of beauty, an endless waterfall of wonders pouring into our laps, and I cannot express how much I love beautiful things being written with beautiful prose (which of course Vo’s always is) – but despite how much I loved it, Judith’s awareness of the context of all that beauty often had me wanting to spit. The shallow, meaningless things the wealthy spend their money on, when there are people starving and broken and dying a few hundred feet away! How dare they?
And that’s very far from all their monstrousness. Some of those overseeing the Balls seem eager for the new generation of would-be demons’ brides to fail and be slaughtered; at various points, other debutantes deliberately sabotage Judith, in moments and ways that could get her killed – that are clearly intended to get her killed! And they do so without knowing she’s a pretender; they do it while fully believing that she’s one of their own. Probably I am terribly naive, but I was stunned every time it happened. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU?!
But of course, this is what these women have been reared and trained for, and it’s not even a metaphor, it’s just straight-up Patriarchy. All other women are competition; the only thing that matters is getting the best husband. It’s not like that’s an unfamiliar concept, alas.
(What would happen if the women banded together, instead? If they became allies instead of competitors? If they rejected the competition? Months after finishing this book, I’m still wondering about that.)
You can’t even blame these young women for trying to take out the competition. They’re not deluded or working from false information: gaining a demon husband IS power. Everyone who wins such a husband will have the power of a natural disaster at their beck and call – and we swiftly learn that these husbands worship their wives. A demon husband is never mad at you, never disagrees with you, will never divorce you or beat you or cheat on you; a woman with a demon husband is immune to almost all of the dangers married women faced at this point in history, in this part of the world. At first glance – at second and third glance, even – it looks like a feminist power-fantasy.
But it’s more complicated than that. Because the young women have been groomed for this from birth, because it’s their families that want these husbands, it’s the families, more than the wives, who will benefit. New York’s Four Hundred (or at least, the ones invited to participate in the Balls) offer up their daughters to monsters, sacrifice their sons to them, for more – more money, more power, more more more. That the demon husbands literally eat their wives, piece by piece? Well, that’s a cost these families can live with. Even if their daughters, sooner or later, can’t.
None of which erases the fact that these women are not only victims. The opportunity to and process of winning a demon husband is a study in the kyriarchy, with multiple shifting forces and dynamics of power and privilege in play at any given moment. These women are sacrificial lambs, but they really will have power, power in the world and power over their husbands; in many ways having a demon husband is safer than having a mortal one! Which is one reason, of course, that all these mothers train and offer up their daughters: not only for the familial benefit, but because they want their daughters to have what they have. Especially in this time period, it’s not at all hard to see why mothers who do love their daughters would want this for them.
Nothing about this, or about the book as a whole, is reductive.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
~nightmare of manners
~hedonism as defiance
~intoxicating prose
~more solidarity between humans and demons than poor and wealthy
~Nghi Vo’s best yet
Have you ever had truly excellent red velvet cake? I mean really excellent, not the bland stuff they serve at most coffee shops. The kind that’s so rich you have to take breaks between bites, or be overwhelmed; the kind with frosting so sinfully sweet each taste feels like you’re getting away with something. The kind you linger over, because you’ll mourn when it’s gone; that turns you into something predatory, hunting down every last crumb on the plate. The kind that would get a friend stabbed with your fork, if they tried to steal a piece.
That’s The Scarlet Ball.
If you’ve read and loved Nghi Vo before, you are not ready for this book: she has outdone herself a thousandfold. If you’ve never read a Nghi Vo book before, then this is the perfect place to start, the book that will leave you addicted to her decadent prose, her wild, beautiful magic, her heroines who revel in everything they are.
It emerged like wickedness from Pandora’s box, dark and eager to ruin the world.
Judith, Judith, Judith. Here is the protagonist I’ve been longing for, razor-sharp and ruthless with it, not just willing but able to dance with demons for her dreams. Morally-grey? Oh, in spades. She isn’t Nice, she isn’t Gentle, she is not any kind of Good Girl – she’s amoral at best, a starving tiger, wary and hungry and merciless, and I love her for all of it. I love how unabashed she is about her hunger, how untender she is with others as well as with herself, how unashamed she is of her everything. She makes me think of Lilith from Jewish folklore, that same kind of – elemental, feral freedom, the same sense of being untamed and untameable.
Which makes her such a perfect candidate for the Scarlet Ball, for the demon lords. Vo’s demons aren’t the Abrahamic kind; they’re elementals, forces of nature, natural disasters that have taken the form of men. (Been given those forms, even.) No wonder so many of the women who try for a demon husband fall; they’ve living in a world that stamps the wildness out of them, and you have to have more than a little wildness in you to be able to spar and dance and marry a wildfire, a mudslide, a flood.
(Except one of the many things Scarlet Ball does is explore the strength and power of these women, even if it’s not the strength or power we might think it is at first.)
But though she is wild, Judith is not fearless. Over and over again throughout the book, she is afraid, terrified, and that – makes her so much more vividly real than if she was contemptuous of the danger. She knows her own strength, in all senses of the word, and she knows what she’s capable of – which means she fully understands how completely outclassed she is by these wildfires and floods that look like men and want to eat her alive. That Judith is a long-time survivor enriches the whole scenario, because if she is afraid, we understand, after everything she’s been through – if she’s afraid, then we definitely should be. We can trust Judith to – accurately assess the situation she’s in, the threats to her, in a way we couldn’t if she had a more typical kind of confidence.
In so many ways, Scarlet Ball is a horror novel, and it can be difficult to decide whether the demons or New York’s ‘elite’ are the more monstrous. This is very clearly intentional. Judith is biracial – Vietnamese and French – and her poverty would put her at the bottom of the social hierarchy even if she were white; she is very, very aware of how disgusting the 1% are, and of how completely they would tear her apart if they realised she is not the mask she wears. Her terror of the demon lords is visceral, but at least they’re honest about what they are and what they want, and in a very real way they can’t help it. They’re not human and never will be. But the wealthy elite Judith’s infiltrated? What’s their excuse for the damage they do? This book is so full of beauty, an endless waterfall of wonders pouring into our laps, and I cannot express how much I love beautiful things being written with beautiful prose (which of course Vo’s always is) – but despite how much I loved it, Judith’s awareness of the context of all that beauty often had me wanting to spit. The shallow, meaningless things the wealthy spend their money on, when there are people starving and broken and dying a few hundred feet away! How dare they?
You feared a wildfire for its devastation, for the sudden and unthinking loss of life and property. You feared people that rich for their idle whims alone.
And that’s very far from all their monstrousness. Some of those overseeing the Balls seem eager for the new generation of would-be demons’ brides to fail and be slaughtered; at various points, other debutantes deliberately sabotage Judith, in moments and ways that could get her killed – that are clearly intended to get her killed! And they do so without knowing she’s a pretender; they do it while fully believing that she’s one of their own. Probably I am terribly naive, but I was stunned every time it happened. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ALL OF YOU?!
But of course, this is what these women have been reared and trained for, and it’s not even a metaphor, it’s just straight-up Patriarchy. All other women are competition; the only thing that matters is getting the best husband. It’s not like that’s an unfamiliar concept, alas.
(What would happen if the women banded together, instead? If they became allies instead of competitors? If they rejected the competition? Months after finishing this book, I’m still wondering about that.)
You can’t even blame these young women for trying to take out the competition. They’re not deluded or working from false information: gaining a demon husband IS power. Everyone who wins such a husband will have the power of a natural disaster at their beck and call – and we swiftly learn that these husbands worship their wives. A demon husband is never mad at you, never disagrees with you, will never divorce you or beat you or cheat on you; a woman with a demon husband is immune to almost all of the dangers married women faced at this point in history, in this part of the world. At first glance – at second and third glance, even – it looks like a feminist power-fantasy.
It was seen as wise for girls to starve a bit before the events. It kept us from throwing up out of nerves or needing to maneuver those fancy clothes overmuch in a powder room, but more than that, I think it kept us docile and woolly-headed, even when we were impressing bankers and industrialists rather than demons.
But it’s more complicated than that. Because the young women have been groomed for this from birth, because it’s their families that want these husbands, it’s the families, more than the wives, who will benefit. New York’s Four Hundred (or at least, the ones invited to participate in the Balls) offer up their daughters to monsters, sacrifice their sons to them, for more – more money, more power, more more more. That the demon husbands literally eat their wives, piece by piece? Well, that’s a cost these families can live with. Even if their daughters, sooner or later, can’t.
Girls like her balanced their wealth and reputation of their families on their heads. They were expected to bite their tongues and swallow the blood, and you saw in their perfected faces how they were prepared to do so all their lives.
None of which erases the fact that these women are not only victims. The opportunity to and process of winning a demon husband is a study in the kyriarchy, with multiple shifting forces and dynamics of power and privilege in play at any given moment. These women are sacrificial lambs, but they really will have power, power in the world and power over their husbands; in many ways having a demon husband is safer than having a mortal one! Which is one reason, of course, that all these mothers train and offer up their daughters: not only for the familial benefit, but because they want their daughters to have what they have. Especially in this time period, it’s not at all hard to see why mothers who do love their daughters would want this for them.
Nothing about this, or about the book as a whole, is reductive.
Read the rest at Every Book a Doorway!
October 7, 2026
I love historical romance. I love speculative fiction. I love gaslamp fantasy. So when one of my favorite SpecFic authors, Nghi Vo, released a Gilded Age NYC-set horror with romantic elements, I knew I was in for a treat.
Judith Ban works for a dressmaker in New York City. One evening, as she's delivering a new dress to a high society family daughter, she interrupts a family drama: the daughter has run away, and there is no longer anyone to attend society functions for her to make a successful marriage. Mrs. Howard, the matriarch of the family, convinces Judith to take her granddaughter's place just for that night. And then, just until they locate Miss Marshall.
As Judith soon learns, the social season is not simply a way for the rich and powerful to meet and marry. No, it's a particular union of the supernatural and the human: the daughters and sons of these families are offered as beloved sacrifices to "demon lords." The daughters marry the demon lords, while the sons are sacrificed to provide the lords' physical bodies. The wives, though, are sacrificed over a longer period of time: they have to keep their demon lords fed, but not too satisfied - with pieces of themselves (physical, emotional, psychic, etc.) or with pieces of other people (servants, enemy soldiers, the lower classes, etc.) - until the very end, when their husband will devour them entirely.
So yes, the book makes metaphorically explicit the subjugation and exploitation of women, but also the privileges that certain women (white women, primarily) enjoy even while being actively harmed by the system. Judith, as a woman of color masquerading as a white debutante, is obviously aware of how her privilege puts her in a different kind of danger than her everyday life did. She's willing to put herself through it for the reward of economic safety.
But what if she manages to attract a demon lord all on her own?
I can't call this a historical or even a horror romance, because the romantic relationship is not the point of the book. But Vo's use of the romance structure is impeccable. Vive Judith!
Audio: I listened to most of the book (I didn't want to wait for the end so read the last 3 chapters with my eyes!) and I thought Natalie Naudus did a great job with the narration. She certainly embodied Judith perfectly. My only issue is probably a "me" thing: I haaaated the way she pronounced "Iphigenia."
This objective review is based on complimentary copies of the ebook and audiobook.
Judith Ban works for a dressmaker in New York City. One evening, as she's delivering a new dress to a high society family daughter, she interrupts a family drama: the daughter has run away, and there is no longer anyone to attend society functions for her to make a successful marriage. Mrs. Howard, the matriarch of the family, convinces Judith to take her granddaughter's place just for that night. And then, just until they locate Miss Marshall.
As Judith soon learns, the social season is not simply a way for the rich and powerful to meet and marry. No, it's a particular union of the supernatural and the human: the daughters and sons of these families are offered as beloved sacrifices to "demon lords." The daughters marry the demon lords, while the sons are sacrificed to provide the lords' physical bodies. The wives, though, are sacrificed over a longer period of time: they have to keep their demon lords fed, but not too satisfied - with pieces of themselves (physical, emotional, psychic, etc.) or with pieces of other people (servants, enemy soldiers, the lower classes, etc.) - until the very end, when their husband will devour them entirely.
So yes, the book makes metaphorically explicit the subjugation and exploitation of women, but also the privileges that certain women (white women, primarily) enjoy even while being actively harmed by the system. Judith, as a woman of color masquerading as a white debutante, is obviously aware of how her privilege puts her in a different kind of danger than her everyday life did. She's willing to put herself through it for the reward of economic safety.
But what if she manages to attract a demon lord all on her own?
I can't call this a historical or even a horror romance, because the romantic relationship is not the point of the book. But Vo's use of the romance structure is impeccable. Vive Judith!
Audio: I listened to most of the book (I didn't want to wait for the end so read the last 3 chapters with my eyes!) and I thought Natalie Naudus did a great job with the narration. She certainly embodied Judith perfectly. My only issue is probably a "me" thing: I haaaated the way she pronounced "Iphigenia."
This objective review is based on complimentary copies of the ebook and audiobook.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor for the opportunity to read and review an eARC of this book!
The Scarlet Ball sounded right up my alley - Gilded Age wealthy society and a demonic underbelly. Unfortunately the execution just wasn’t there for me. This book focused on all the wrong details in my opinion. The demonic action and magical elements were completely vague and glossed over, to the point they actually made no sense. And since I was reading this for the supernatural spookiness, this left me disappointed. There was too much detail and care given to things that didn’t matter, and what I had hoped would be the meat of the story was only covered in a very high level way. There wasn’t much dread built because the scarier parts were rushed through. This was a miss for me, though the idea behind it was an interesting one.
The Scarlet Ball sounded right up my alley - Gilded Age wealthy society and a demonic underbelly. Unfortunately the execution just wasn’t there for me. This book focused on all the wrong details in my opinion. The demonic action and magical elements were completely vague and glossed over, to the point they actually made no sense. And since I was reading this for the supernatural spookiness, this left me disappointed. There was too much detail and care given to things that didn’t matter, and what I had hoped would be the meat of the story was only covered in a very high level way. There wasn’t much dread built because the scarier parts were rushed through. This was a miss for me, though the idea behind it was an interesting one.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Mixed-race Judith Ban has had to be ruthless to survive. As an ex-courtesan, she believes she knows how to manage men and the cream of society. But she may be about to reach her match. When she is offered a job impersonating the missing daughter of the (white) rich and influential Howards, she knows it will be neither easy, nor entirely safe. But it is unlikely she realises just how dangerous her life will become.
The Howards, and their circle of ‘friends’, are not normal wealthy couples. The men are voracious demons, whose wives feed them expendable people (servants, strangers, sons ….) in return for status, riches and influence. The daughters go to a succession of balls, to attract their demon husband. They might capture a demon heart – or they may be (literally) eaten – ‘murder on the dance floor’.
Judith must not just wear (again, literally!) the Howard daughter’s face, but she must also learn how to act as though she was born into this milieu – how to wear the dresses, eat (or not eat) the food provided, dance the dances …And, most of all, how to stick to the rules of the balls. Mistakes WILL be fatal.
The demons become devoted to their chosen wife. But it is not love as we would understand it. It is a mutually beneficial commercial relationship. A hungry demon is deadly - even to his ‘beloved’ wife.
Can Judith walk this treacherous tightrope and survive? Will the daughter return?
Initially, Judith agreed to this charade for money – but as the months pass, the balls come and go, will she want/need more incentive? What sort of demon can she attract? Is it possible to extract herself from this society? Will she want to?
A gothic horror of a story – beautiful prose that masks the terror of the perfectly orchestrated danse macabre.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and not influenced by either the author or publisher.
The Howards, and their circle of ‘friends’, are not normal wealthy couples. The men are voracious demons, whose wives feed them expendable people (servants, strangers, sons ….) in return for status, riches and influence. The daughters go to a succession of balls, to attract their demon husband. They might capture a demon heart – or they may be (literally) eaten – ‘murder on the dance floor’.
Judith must not just wear (again, literally!) the Howard daughter’s face, but she must also learn how to act as though she was born into this milieu – how to wear the dresses, eat (or not eat) the food provided, dance the dances …And, most of all, how to stick to the rules of the balls. Mistakes WILL be fatal.
“there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.”
‘Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ – T S Eliot
The demons become devoted to their chosen wife. But it is not love as we would understand it. It is a mutually beneficial commercial relationship. A hungry demon is deadly - even to his ‘beloved’ wife.
Can Judith walk this treacherous tightrope and survive? Will the daughter return?
Initially, Judith agreed to this charade for money – but as the months pass, the balls come and go, will she want/need more incentive? What sort of demon can she attract? Is it possible to extract herself from this society? Will she want to?
A gothic horror of a story – beautiful prose that masks the terror of the perfectly orchestrated danse macabre.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own and not influenced by either the author or publisher.
October 13, 2026
Nghi Vo revisits her alternate fictional world of great literature that contains demons with this book. The first was her variation on the Great Gatsby, The Chosen and the Beautiful. This one goes back to the Gilded Age of the 1890s and Edith Wharton's House of Mirth (I presume). Although rather than a debutante falling out of society, we have a Vietnamese whore rising into it.
Judith Ban had to flee her Parisian whorehouse when she crossed a gang leader. She's doing piecework, sewing for a French courtier shop in Manhattan when fate throws her into the high society house of Mr. and Mrs. Howard, where she is deemed to be an acceptable stand-in for Mrs. Howard's missing granddaughter. The Vietnamese face? Not a problem, just sew on the face of the granddaughter's look-alike cousin. And the weirdness begins.
As with The Chosen and the Beautiful, we have the literalized metaphor of the demonic upper class, literally demons in this case. At least some of the men are, married to human women who must control them by feeding them just enough to keep them from devouring their wives or other women in society. (The lower classes don't count.)
Judith Ban is an engaging first-person narrator. Amoral, clear-eyed in knowing what it takes to stay alive and survive. Mouthy, but good in negotiations. She has an excellent intuition for adapting to the situation and reading her opponents so that she keeps just on the edge of being destroyed while gaining as much agency as possible. Don't bet against this woman.
Vo's plot moves along quickly, and the characters are drawn fully, even the ancillary ones. Vo fans will not want to miss this one, and fans of historical fiction, especially about the upstairs-downstairs world of the Gilded Age, will enjoy this magical variation on class society and racial representation.
Judith Ban had to flee her Parisian whorehouse when she crossed a gang leader. She's doing piecework, sewing for a French courtier shop in Manhattan when fate throws her into the high society house of Mr. and Mrs. Howard, where she is deemed to be an acceptable stand-in for Mrs. Howard's missing granddaughter. The Vietnamese face? Not a problem, just sew on the face of the granddaughter's look-alike cousin. And the weirdness begins.
As with The Chosen and the Beautiful, we have the literalized metaphor of the demonic upper class, literally demons in this case. At least some of the men are, married to human women who must control them by feeding them just enough to keep them from devouring their wives or other women in society. (The lower classes don't count.)
Judith Ban is an engaging first-person narrator. Amoral, clear-eyed in knowing what it takes to stay alive and survive. Mouthy, but good in negotiations. She has an excellent intuition for adapting to the situation and reading her opponents so that she keeps just on the edge of being destroyed while gaining as much agency as possible. Don't bet against this woman.
Vo's plot moves along quickly, and the characters are drawn fully, even the ancillary ones. Vo fans will not want to miss this one, and fans of historical fiction, especially about the upstairs-downstairs world of the Gilded Age, will enjoy this magical variation on class society and racial representation.
October 12, 2026
A very good book. It blends supernatural and demonic elements with the atmosphere of Gilded Age New York to tell a story that takes some unexpected turns and cleverly subverts familiar tropes.
Through the eyes of Judith, a young woman of French-Vietnamese descent, the novel explores themes of female agency, racism, and social inequality, all wrapped up in gothic horror. The story is very much centered on the protagonist, which means the supporting characters aren’t quite as fleshed out as I would have liked. But that’s a minor quibble.
What I didn’t expect was just how unpredictable the story would be and how many different reactions it would manage to get out of me. I was intrigued, excited, grossed out, amused, and even a little angry at times. I loved that the book wasn’t afraid to go in unexpected directions, especially when it came to the romance. At the same time, it was highly readable, with great pacing and a plot that kept me hooked.
This was my first book by this author, and I think it was a perfect place to start.
Through the eyes of Judith, a young woman of French-Vietnamese descent, the novel explores themes of female agency, racism, and social inequality, all wrapped up in gothic horror. The story is very much centered on the protagonist, which means the supporting characters aren’t quite as fleshed out as I would have liked. But that’s a minor quibble.
What I didn’t expect was just how unpredictable the story would be and how many different reactions it would manage to get out of me. I was intrigued, excited, grossed out, amused, and even a little angry at times. I loved that the book wasn’t afraid to go in unexpected directions, especially when it came to the romance. At the same time, it was highly readable, with great pacing and a plot that kept me hooked.
This was my first book by this author, and I think it was a perfect place to start.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an audio ARC.
The world that Vo crafted is fascinating. I loved the gilded age setting. I also loved the supernatural elements. However at times I wished for more details about the supernatural elements due to being at bit confused at times. Judith also made for an interesting character. The narration was superb for this book and overall really great to listen to.
The world that Vo crafted is fascinating. I loved the gilded age setting. I also loved the supernatural elements. However at times I wished for more details about the supernatural elements due to being at bit confused at times. Judith also made for an interesting character. The narration was superb for this book and overall really great to listen to.
October 7, 2026
Stunning, absolutely brilliant. I love Nghi Vo's Singing Hills cycle, but I devour these historical magical novels every single time like she wrote them to be inhaled in one go. Full review to come but what a glorious whirlwind of a book.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Not for me, I'm afraid.
The prose was lush (but with no substance to back it up), the pacing good and the plot, such as it was, was reasonable.
However, the characters were beyond two dimensional, many aspects of the "magic" were illogical, and, unlike the publisher's blurb, there wasn't a subversion of trope in sight. I rather took exception to the fact that this was marketed as some overthrow of the social mores of the Gilded Age, some great and harrowing examination of class and gender, when in fact it was merely a slightly better than average YA novel. Disappointing.
My thanks to Edelweiss for the Arc, all opinions are my own.
The prose was lush (but with no substance to back it up), the pacing good and the plot, such as it was, was reasonable.
However, the characters were beyond two dimensional, many aspects of the "magic" were illogical, and, unlike the publisher's blurb, there wasn't a subversion of trope in sight. I rather took exception to the fact that this was marketed as some overthrow of the social mores of the Gilded Age, some great and harrowing examination of class and gender, when in fact it was merely a slightly better than average YA novel. Disappointing.
My thanks to Edelweiss for the Arc, all opinions are my own.
October 6, 2026
Pick a face. Pick a fate. Try not to get eaten.👀
Nghi Vo took Gilded Age New York, debutante balls, classism, racial hierarchy, marriage, demons, and body horror and threw them into a blender.
Judith Ban. Oh, I LOVE this woman. 😩🖤 Judith is not your sweet, innocent heroine. She's a survivor. She's calculating, hungry, morally gray, ambitious, and fully aware that the world has never been particularly kind to women like her. When she gets the opportunity to impersonate a wealthy white debutante, complete with someone else's face literally stitched over her own, she's not thinking about romance. She's thinking about survival. I respect the hell out of her for it. Because Judith knows exactly what she's doing. She knows the privilege that comes with wearing that face. She knows what it means to have access to rooms, wealth, safety, and opportunities that would never have been available to her otherwise.
But the price?
🩸 Blood.
🩸 Marriage.
🩸 Power.
🩸 And maybe being eaten by your demonic husband.
You know… normal debutante season stuff.💀😂
Under all the gorgeous gowns, extravagant parties, decadent food, and supernatural romance is this incredibly sharp commentary on wealth, privilege, patriarchy, class, race, and the ways women have historically had to negotiate their own bodies and marriages to gain power. A demon husband might literally devour you… but at least he can't cheat on you, beat you, divorce you, or strip away your autonomy. And then you're sitting there thinking….Wait… what exactly does that say about the society these women are coming from?👀
Yeah babes. Nghi Vo went THERE.
My only little complaint? I wanted MORE.
More Judith. More of her history. More of the supporting characters. More of this world. Give me another 200 pages and I would've happily devoured them. Because once I was in this world, I did NOT want to leave.
The Scarlet Ball is weird. It's sexy. It's bloody. It's intelligent. It's gothic. It's haunting. It's beautifully written.
And most importantly, it doesn't give you the story you think you're getting.
You think you're getting a dark historical romance. Then the demons show up.
You think you're getting a monster romance. Then you realize the real monsters might be the people sitting around the dinner table.
You think you're watching women compete for powerful husbands. Then you start questioning who actually holds the power.
Just remember:
Pick a face. Pick a fate.
And maybe… don't trust the rich people. 😂🩸
🖤 Gilded Age New York
🩸 Gothic Fantasy
👠 Debutante Season
🔥 Dark Romance
👹 Demonic Suitors
🪡 Face Swap / Stitched Face
💰 Wealth & Classism
🖤 Morally Gray FMC
✨ Faustian Bargain
🌹 Slow Burn
🩸 Body Horror
👀 Power & Control
🔥 Monster Romance
Nghi Vo took Gilded Age New York, debutante balls, classism, racial hierarchy, marriage, demons, and body horror and threw them into a blender.
Judith Ban. Oh, I LOVE this woman. 😩🖤 Judith is not your sweet, innocent heroine. She's a survivor. She's calculating, hungry, morally gray, ambitious, and fully aware that the world has never been particularly kind to women like her. When she gets the opportunity to impersonate a wealthy white debutante, complete with someone else's face literally stitched over her own, she's not thinking about romance. She's thinking about survival. I respect the hell out of her for it. Because Judith knows exactly what she's doing. She knows the privilege that comes with wearing that face. She knows what it means to have access to rooms, wealth, safety, and opportunities that would never have been available to her otherwise.
But the price?
🩸 Blood.
🩸 Marriage.
🩸 Power.
🩸 And maybe being eaten by your demonic husband.
You know… normal debutante season stuff.💀😂
Under all the gorgeous gowns, extravagant parties, decadent food, and supernatural romance is this incredibly sharp commentary on wealth, privilege, patriarchy, class, race, and the ways women have historically had to negotiate their own bodies and marriages to gain power. A demon husband might literally devour you… but at least he can't cheat on you, beat you, divorce you, or strip away your autonomy. And then you're sitting there thinking….Wait… what exactly does that say about the society these women are coming from?👀
Yeah babes. Nghi Vo went THERE.
My only little complaint? I wanted MORE.
More Judith. More of her history. More of the supporting characters. More of this world. Give me another 200 pages and I would've happily devoured them. Because once I was in this world, I did NOT want to leave.
The Scarlet Ball is weird. It's sexy. It's bloody. It's intelligent. It's gothic. It's haunting. It's beautifully written.
And most importantly, it doesn't give you the story you think you're getting.
You think you're getting a dark historical romance. Then the demons show up.
You think you're getting a monster romance. Then you realize the real monsters might be the people sitting around the dinner table.
You think you're watching women compete for powerful husbands. Then you start questioning who actually holds the power.
Just remember:
Pick a face. Pick a fate.
And maybe… don't trust the rich people. 😂🩸
🖤 Gilded Age New York
🩸 Gothic Fantasy
👠 Debutante Season
🔥 Dark Romance
👹 Demonic Suitors
🪡 Face Swap / Stitched Face
💰 Wealth & Classism
🖤 Morally Gray FMC
✨ Faustian Bargain
🌹 Slow Burn
🩸 Body Horror
👀 Power & Control
🔥 Monster Romance
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
Thanks to MacMillan Audio for the gifted ALC. All opinions are honestly and voluntarily shared.
Story 4.5/5 stars
Narration 5/5 stars
This was a stunningly unique and lush standalone romantasy set in a Gilded Age New York. I loved the issues of race and identity that are raised - by wearing another woman’s face, Judith is forced to change her identity (at least on the surface). This book deals with these issues in much the same way that Queen of Faces deals with issues of gender identity, and I absolutely ate them both up. I love books that force us to question identity and stereotypes in unique frameworks.
It also offered a touch of The Selection vibes with the series of balls that our debutantes attend - but these ladies don’t receive a rose. They receive their life, or are devoured. The monsters and body horror are present. It’s not gory, but it is atmospheric and descriptive. And the monsters are alien creatures of disaster and storm.
Judith is a fantastic FMC, ambitious and morally ambiguous and constantly changes who she is and her approach to problems as they appear to give herself advantage. She’s smart and she’s a survivor. Her relationship with Sebastian plays a second note to her own individual story, and she’s a character who is worthy of it.
I wish the magical elements were more explained. We know these creatures (men? Storms? Prospective husbands? Eldritch terrors?) exist but are never given any real worldbuilding into HOW.
All told, this was gorgeously written. The audio narration by Natalie Naudus was pristine. She infuses so much determination and street smarts into Judith’s character and keeps the pace moving quickly. Could not put it down!
Story 4.5/5 stars
Narration 5/5 stars
This was a stunningly unique and lush standalone romantasy set in a Gilded Age New York. I loved the issues of race and identity that are raised - by wearing another woman’s face, Judith is forced to change her identity (at least on the surface). This book deals with these issues in much the same way that Queen of Faces deals with issues of gender identity, and I absolutely ate them both up. I love books that force us to question identity and stereotypes in unique frameworks.
It also offered a touch of The Selection vibes with the series of balls that our debutantes attend - but these ladies don’t receive a rose. They receive their life, or are devoured. The monsters and body horror are present. It’s not gory, but it is atmospheric and descriptive. And the monsters are alien creatures of disaster and storm.
Judith is a fantastic FMC, ambitious and morally ambiguous and constantly changes who she is and her approach to problems as they appear to give herself advantage. She’s smart and she’s a survivor. Her relationship with Sebastian plays a second note to her own individual story, and she’s a character who is worthy of it.
I wish the magical elements were more explained. We know these creatures (men? Storms? Prospective husbands? Eldritch terrors?) exist but are never given any real worldbuilding into HOW.
All told, this was gorgeously written. The audio narration by Natalie Naudus was pristine. She infuses so much determination and street smarts into Judith’s character and keeps the pace moving quickly. Could not put it down!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Thank you NetGalley and Tor for the gifted arc!! This seemed so up my alley—gothic gilded age vibes, a marriage mart with demon lords, and what would seem like the perfect fall read. While the premise was so intriguing, the execution wasn’t my cup of tea.
The Scarlett Ball follows Judith who enters the marriage trials as the granddaughter of Mrs. Howard, who has gone missing. The two reach a mutually beneficial deal, and Judith is swept up into the dark underbelly of gilded Age NYC glamor. The demon lords are personifications of natural disasters, which I found super interesting.
I think where this fell flat for me is that there were so many unique and interesting supernatural elements, but the details were very glossed over and not explained. The author spent so much time describing the places, the clothes, the food—I wanted that same level of care used to describe the supernatural elements such as the demons themselves, the supernatural objects, and the spells.
All in all, I just don’t think this author’s writing style is for me. I wasn’t a fan of the ending, and I was actually kinda hoping she would end up with Mielle. I would’ve liked to know what happened to Mrs. Howard’s granddaughter too.
The Scarlett Ball follows Judith who enters the marriage trials as the granddaughter of Mrs. Howard, who has gone missing. The two reach a mutually beneficial deal, and Judith is swept up into the dark underbelly of gilded Age NYC glamor. The demon lords are personifications of natural disasters, which I found super interesting.
I think where this fell flat for me is that there were so many unique and interesting supernatural elements, but the details were very glossed over and not explained. The author spent so much time describing the places, the clothes, the food—I wanted that same level of care used to describe the supernatural elements such as the demons themselves, the supernatural objects, and the spells.
All in all, I just don’t think this author’s writing style is for me. I wasn’t a fan of the ending, and I was actually kinda hoping she would end up with Mielle. I would’ve liked to know what happened to Mrs. Howard’s granddaughter too.
October 7, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio and Nghi Vo for the opportunity to listen and review The Scarlet Ball. My thoughts are entirely my own.
I would describe Scarlet Ball as a gothic fantasy mixed with romance and horror. It is truly a unique storyline and I have never read anything like it. Judith strikes a deal with a powerful family where she poses as their granddaughter with her face stitched on her own. The world she experiences and things she witnesses are eye opening. The demons she encounters will keep you awake at night. Nghi is fantastic at worldbuilding and articulating in such a way that you can vividly visualize what is happening. The romance is a verrrry slow burn until it isn’t.
I did find the pacing of this book to be a bit slow and I found myself often hoping for an elevated pace. I got a bit lost in the multiple ball events and found some repetition in them while other elements were a bit confusing and I was hoping for elaboration.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
I would describe Scarlet Ball as a gothic fantasy mixed with romance and horror. It is truly a unique storyline and I have never read anything like it. Judith strikes a deal with a powerful family where she poses as their granddaughter with her face stitched on her own. The world she experiences and things she witnesses are eye opening. The demons she encounters will keep you awake at night. Nghi is fantastic at worldbuilding and articulating in such a way that you can vividly visualize what is happening. The romance is a verrrry slow burn until it isn’t.
I did find the pacing of this book to be a bit slow and I found myself often hoping for an elevated pace. I got a bit lost in the multiple ball events and found some repetition in them while other elements were a bit confusing and I was hoping for elaboration.
I give this book 3/5 stars.
October 11, 2026
Stunning. Don't miss out on this glorious novel!
Lush, scintillating prose, and a deeply unsettlingly exploration of whiteness/power/privilege that felt like Get Out set in the Gilded Age. I'm glad I prerordered a copy rather than waiting months for a library loan because I'll definitely be coming back to read this over and over again.
Lush, scintillating prose, and a deeply unsettlingly exploration of whiteness/power/privilege that felt like Get Out set in the Gilded Age. I'm glad I prerordered a copy rather than waiting months for a library loan because I'll definitely be coming back to read this over and over again.
October 10, 2026
I loved the gothic vibes and the magic in this one! I went in completely blind and got so lost in the story. Definitely need to check out more from Nghi Vo now.
4.25 🌟
4.25 🌟
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This is my first full length read by Nghi Vo and it was oh so good. Some light body horror, but otherwise a deliciously dark historical fantasy - perfect for scaredy-cats! I was equal parts horrified, because hold a mirror up to society, and eager to find out how it would all conclude.
Set in NYC during the Gilded Age where not every person is actually human, with magical plastic-surgery but make it much much darker. A haunting story about race and power and what some people will go through to get it.
I read this via audiobook, and Natalie Naudus remains one of my favourite narrators. This is possibly the most and various voices I've heard by her yet, and it was excellently done.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio for an ALC. All opinions are my own.
Set in NYC during the Gilded Age where not every person is actually human, with magical plastic-surgery but make it much much darker. A haunting story about race and power and what some people will go through to get it.
I read this via audiobook, and Natalie Naudus remains one of my favourite narrators. This is possibly the most and various voices I've heard by her yet, and it was excellently done.
Thank you to Macmillan Audio for an ALC. All opinions are my own.
June 21, 2026
I really wish I'd read this in autumn! It's suuuuper atmospheric and Gothic, but instead of your typical waif-ish blonde heroine, we have a kickass former courtesan/thief who's trying to escape her old life, and will stop at nothing to get what she deserves. That's probably my favourite aspect of the book. She never reacts how you expect her to react, and it's just COOL. Judith is the proverbial cat amongst the pigeons.
I also think the characters are so well thought out, so savage yet poised in the best way. There's such a clever undertone throughout of being right on the edge, ready to tip one way at any point. The relationships between the girls and the men are so tense and you just can't predict what's going to happen next. The historical setting is perfect for this, at a time where society would forgive anything as long as you stick to the rules of hierarchy. It's a great background to this story.
The reasons I didn't give it 5 stars is because the book feels longer than it is. It's quite dense, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think it needs more moments of light vs the shade for relief. The fantasy element also feels a little bit clunky in places. There's no overt explanation on how this alternate world works, and you learn it through osmosis, which is fine but sometimes random elements just completely took me out of it. Like, some people seem to be able to do something magic, or they own magical things, but how? Are they somehow harnessing the lords' weather based powers but how would that enable someone to put a bird down someone's throat and change their voice? I fully get that there's a brutality to the things these girls do to themselves to appease the lords, but there's just no base level of understanding. I thought I'd got it and then suddenly a random magic thing happens which doesn't match anything else that's already happened. I'm missing knowledge of limitations and possibilities.
That being said, this is a beautifully crafted story and the characters are three dimensional and well thought out, so it's a 4 stars from me. Thanks to Netgalley and Del Ray for the free review eArc.
I also think the characters are so well thought out, so savage yet poised in the best way. There's such a clever undertone throughout of being right on the edge, ready to tip one way at any point. The relationships between the girls and the men are so tense and you just can't predict what's going to happen next. The historical setting is perfect for this, at a time where society would forgive anything as long as you stick to the rules of hierarchy. It's a great background to this story.
The reasons I didn't give it 5 stars is because the book feels longer than it is. It's quite dense, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think it needs more moments of light vs the shade for relief. The fantasy element also feels a little bit clunky in places. There's no overt explanation on how this alternate world works, and you learn it through osmosis, which is fine but sometimes random elements just completely took me out of it. Like, some people seem to be able to do something magic, or they own magical things, but how? Are they somehow harnessing the lords' weather based powers but how would that enable someone to put a bird down someone's throat and change their voice? I fully get that there's a brutality to the things these girls do to themselves to appease the lords, but there's just no base level of understanding. I thought I'd got it and then suddenly a random magic thing happens which doesn't match anything else that's already happened. I'm missing knowledge of limitations and possibilities.
That being said, this is a beautifully crafted story and the characters are three dimensional and well thought out, so it's a 4 stars from me. Thanks to Netgalley and Del Ray for the free review eArc.
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