These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong (2020)
Rival gangs in 1926 Shanghai, and a madness spreading through the city.
Give the feud a city with real stakes, add a madness that turns gangsters on themselves, and make the lovers the only people who can stop it.
You read fantasy and romance, and you want this story as a page-turner set somewhere you have never been.
What it keeps and what it changes
Keeps: the blood feud, the heirs on each side, and a first love that is also a betrayal.
Changes: the setting, to 1926 Shanghai, where the Scarlet Gang and the White Flowers fight over the city, and the plot, which becomes a fantasy thriller.
1926 Shanghai, the Scarlet Gang against the White Flowers, Juliette Cai against Roma Montagov, and a madness turning gangsters on themselves.
Whose story is it?
Juliette Cai’s, heir to the Scarlets, and Roma Montagov’s, heir to the White Flowers.
How much time does it ask?
496 pages in the 2023 trade paperback. The first book of a duet.
Margaret K. McElderry Books: a retelling of Romeo and Juliet set in 1926 Shanghai.
Where to find it
Buy the paperback — Bookshop.org
Other ways to get it: Paperback — Amazon · Ebook — Kobo · Kindle — Amazon
Borrow it free: Borrow on Libby · Find at your library — WorldCat
More ways into Verona: The Folger Shakespeare Library edition · No Fear Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet · The Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, ed. René Weis