Book Review | Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea

Kianna Flynn
Sep 26
3 min read

Updated: Oct 1

Sitting in the plaza later, watching her crew bustle about repairing the damage from recent battles, Shek Yeung wondered if women in fact turned to lives of crime only out of desperation. Were they, as Qiu Liang-Gong suggested, gentler by nature? Did the presence of a womb mean that they were fated to swoon at the sight of blood, as if blood weren’t the very vehicle that women used to convey life, the red-inked seal they stamped upon the foreheads of their children to send them into the world?

Rita Chang-Eppig's Deep as the Sky, Red as the Sea (2023) explores a side of history often overlooked in traditional narratives. The fictional novel follows Shek Yeung, the legendary Chinese pirate queen who survived human trafficking and rose to command the largest pirate fleet in China. Written from Shek Yeung's perspective, the novel portrays the central character as a dynamic and complex woman while weaving in 19th-century Chinese maritime culture, creating an immersive experience that examines power, freedom, and transformative storytelling.

To be powerless was to live and die by others' whims; to be powerful was to live in constant fear that others might one day take that power away. No part of the world was truly at peace.

At the novel's outset, Shek Yeung's pursuit of power stems from necessity—authority offers protection and liberation from her circumstances. However, as her influence grows, the relationship between power and freedom becomes paradoxically inverted. Rather than delivering the autonomy she seeks, power ensnares her within new responsibilities that mirror the very constraints she fought to escape. For Shek Yeung, survival meant guarding her authority just as fiercely as she once fought for it, leaving little room for the peace she imagined power would bring. Ironically, her pursuit of security through power created its own instability—the very act of protecting her position generated new vulnerabilities and threats. This dynamic raises an unsettling question: what does power actually secure if it cannot guarantee safety? In a world where the absence of peace forces those in power into an endless cycle of defense, power becomes less a shield than another trap. Chang-Eppig is posing an even more profound question to the reader —when power becomes its own prison, can it truly serve as a path to freedom?

Women’s life stories were written by their men, messily, elegantly, or in the case of violent men, tersely. Now that Cheng Yat was dead, Shek Yeung finally had a turn at dictating the course of things. She might have been born thirty-one years ago but her story was only now hers.

The novel effectively employs various storytelling techniques to illustrate how Shek Yeung meticulously reshapes her personal history for different audiences. This not only creates a protective barrier for her but also reveals the inherent selectivity of historical record-keeping—a selectivity often shaped by deeply ingrained cultural norms or political pressures, leading to certain narratives being amplified by dominant voices while others are suppressed. By centering Shek Yeung's perspective, Chang-Eppig reveals the forces that determine which stories survive and which are eclipsed, ultimately underscoring the fundamentally fragmented nature of history.

In the end, stories were not reality, could not be reality. The storyteller decided where to start the story and where to end it, which parts to sink into and which to skim over.

Prior to encountering this work, I possessed little knowledge of the harsh realities Chang-Eppig illuminates: the exploitation of flower boats, recurring famines, and the desperation that transformed piracy into a form of resistance and safe harbour. Historical fiction has long fascinated me for its capacity to recover forgotten perspectives and challenge established narratives. This literary archaeology feels essential in confronting history's multiplicity and acknowledging whose voices shaped the stories we inherit, particularly those systematically excluded. Chang-Eppig's novel serves as a powerful reminder that storytelling itself shapes understanding and the vital importance of amplifying voices historically relegated to the margins and reclaiming space within the broader historical conversation.

Additional Information

Kianna Flynn is a senior at the University of Connecticut, majoring in English with minors in Human Rights and Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. She became involved with WithitGirl through UConn’s Writing Internship Program and received college credit for her writing and contributions.

Purchase the Book from the Publisher, Bloomsbury, also find used copies, ebook, or ask your local library !

Quotes in order:

Chapter Thirteen, ebook, pg.99

Chapter Twenty-Three, ebook, pg. 208

Chapter One, ebook, pg. 9

Chapter Thirty-Six, ebook, pg.279