Andrew Shaw

Author

Books

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Rénn: A grimdark fantasy

In the Sundered Realms, the deepest wound is the one dealt by the one you love.

Renn, is based on ancient Chinese history and mythology but differs from the growing number of fantasy books set in the Middle Kingdom, which mainly focus on either the Tang, Qing, or Republican eras. Renn goes much further back to the Bronze Age, where there is a...

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A Jade Treasury

Jade is the most romantic and blood-drenched stone on earth. To ancient peoples all over the world it was sacred. In China, Confucius raved about it, wars were fought over it and fifteen cities were once offered in exchange for a piece of it. The Aztecs of Central America treasured it more than gold. The Maori in New Zealand loved it so much...

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Jade Life

An Englishman's love affair with China's national treasure.

Andrew’s book, Jade Life, was featured in both the Guardian and the South China Morning Post. It received excellent reviews. The East Asia Book Review wrote: Jade Life is a great read – a big-hearted, highly accessible, informative, and likeable account. It will appeal to any reader interested in China, regardless of one’s interest in jade. The...

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Blog

The first book in my fantasy trilogy, Renn, is now available to order! At last! It's taken two years to get from first draft to publication. It is set at the end of the Bronze Age during the rise and fall of China’s first emperor. The story is told through the eyes of two lovers at its centre. One is a princess kidnapped and sold to a brothel who must seduce a foreign king to gain her freedom. The other is her warrior husband who becomes willing to tear an empire apart to find her. It's...

THE POET EMPRESS BY SHEN TAO

The Poet Empress is one of the standout debut novels of 2026. A stunning work which is already being touted as a possible winner of next year's Hugo Award.


And while you are here, please consider my own book, Renn, also based on ancient Chinese history and mythology, which is now available to order. It is a dark fantasy set at the end of the Bronze Age during the rise and fall of China’s first emperor. The story is told through the eyes of two lovers at its...

CIRCE BY MADELEINE MILLER

Fantasy is almost as old as humankind's ability to speak. The books we read today come long after the first tales about gods, demons, heroes and mythical beats told by primitive man around the fires they lit at night to ward against the cold and dark, and to keep the wild beasts at bay. Some of the first to be written down come from ancient Greece. Tales of Zeus and Olympus are still told today. And of course we were all reminded of those stories by the recent...

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