Beauty and the Beast meets the Legend of the White Snake in this and fantastical adventure, where an exiled princess must learn to command her dangerous and unstable magic.

She was sent to die among monsters. She was not supposed to fall in love with one.

Princess Lian has always known her worth: a bargaining piece for her kingdom's survival. When an arranged marriage to a foreign prince promises to secure Delun's future, she accepts – because that is what good daughters do.

When mysterious magic erupts from her hands at a political banquet, the royal council wastes no time. She is exiled to the Sunset Pagoda, an ancient prison carved into the heart of Demon Mountain, left to die among the ancient spirits her people have feared for centuries.

But the yaojing are not what the histories claim.

Trapped inside a world of impossible forests and glittering hot springs, Lian finds herself caught between two lives: the dutiful princess determined to seal her magic and go home, and someone far more powerful than she was ever allowed to be.

And then there is Junfeng, the Lord Serpent. The oldest spirit on the island, he is a being who has loved and lost across centuries, and who looks at Lian like she is something he thought he would never see again.

Rooted in Chinese mythology and folklore, Where the Lotus Blooms is a lush, slow-burn fantasy romance about a girl who was raised to disappear and the forbidden world that finally teaches her to bloom.

Featuring:

enemies-to-lovers romance
spirit world fantasy and rich world building
reincarnation and a past life mystery