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There are one million new books published each year. With so many books and so little time, where do you begin to find your next must-read? There’s the New York Times Bestseller list, the Goodreads app, the Cape Library’s Staff picks shelf and now Martin’s Must-Reads.Every Wednesday at 6:42 and 8:42 a.m., and Sunday at 8:18 a.m., Betty Martin recommends a must read based on her own personal biases for historical fiction, quirky characters and overall well-turned phrases. Her list includes WWII novels, biographies of trailblazers, novels with truly unique individuals and lots more. Reading close to 100 titles a year, Betty has plenty of titles to share.Local support for "Martin's Must Reads" comes from the Cape Girardeau Public Library and the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library.

Martin's Must-Reads: 'A Song to Drown Rivers'

“They say that when I was born, all the wild geese flew down from the sky, and the fish swam beneath the waves, having forgotten how to swim. Even the lotus flowers in our gardens quivered and turned their heads away, so ashamed they were of their own diminished allure in my presence. I have always found such stories to be laughably exaggerated, but they prove the same thing: that my beauty was something unnatural, transcending nature itself. And that beauty is not so different from destruction.”

That’s the opening passage to Ann Liang’s novel A Song to Drown Rivers. This story is based on the legend of Xishi, one of the four beauties of ancient China, and takes place around 770 BC.

Just as Xishi, a Yue villager reaches marriageable age, she’s asked to use her beauty to overthrow their conqueror, the king of Wu. The young Yue military advisor Fali teaches her the manners and customs of court life and how best to use her beauty to bewitch the conqueror king. But the months of training also cause Fali to fall in love with her. He presents Xishi to King Fuchai, who does indeed become infatuated with her, forgetting all his other concubines and doing whatever Xishi asks, against the better judgement of his own military advisors and weakening the Wu’s defenses.

Ann Liang wrote this book when she was twenty-one and remembering the legends her mother told her as a child. She paints a vivid picture of court life in ancient China.

If you’re looking for, as the jacket says, “an epic novel steeped in myth about womanhood, war, sacrifice and love against all odds,” then you must read A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang.

Betty Martin was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a Lutheran pastor and his organist wife. Betty’s love of books was inspired by her father who read to all four children each night.