The Floating World #1 The Floating World Axie Oh

by Axie Oh
The Floating World Series: The Floating World #1
Published by Hodder And Stoughton Limited on May 13, 2025
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / Romance
Pages: 368
Find the Author: Website, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, Instagram, Tumblr, Patreon
Goodreads

From Axie Oh, the New York Times-bestselling author of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea, Final Fantasy meets Shadow and Bone in this lighthearted romantic fantasy reimagining the Korean legend of Celestial Maidens.

Sunho lives in the Under World, a land of perpetual darkness. An ex-soldier, he can remember little of his life from before two years ago, when he woke up alone with only his name and his sword. Now he does odd-jobs to scrape by, until he comes across the score of a lifetime—a chest of coins for any mercenary who can hunt down a girl who wields silver light.

Meanwhile, far to the east, Ren is a cheerful and spirited acrobat traveling with her adoptive family and performing at villages. But everything changes during one of their festival performances when the village is attacked by a horrific humanlike demon. In a moment of fear and rage, Ren releases a blast of silver light—a power she has kept hidden since childhood—and kills the monster. But her efforts are not in time to prevent her adoptive family from suffering a devastating loss, or to save her beloved uncle from being grievously wounded.

Determined to save him from succumbing to the poisoned wound, Ren sets off over the mountains, where the creature came from—and from where Ren herself fled ten years ago. Her path sets her on a collision course with Sunho, but he doesn't realize she's the girl that he—and a hundred other swords-for-hire—is looking for. As the two grow closer through their travels, they come to realize that their pasts—and destinies—are far more entwined than either of them could have imagined...

Review:

The Floating World is my first book by Axie Oh, and I will admit I went into this without reading the blurb, and I am so glad I did. The cover and the title intrigued me; how do you have a floating world anytime you have encountered that? It has been for a unique reason, and I am always fascinated to see how it is handled. The Floating World is about two characters: one who is hiding from her past and trying to save her found family; she is also hiding a special power that she accidentally put on display for the whole world and has made herself a target. The other character is on a mission to find his brother but can’t remember anything about his past. The floating world reimagines the Korean legend of Celestial Maidens, which I never heard before. It was such a bonus to learn something new about another culture, but I can’t say if I did a good or bad job about that. It is a two-book series, and I am eager to see what happens in the next book.

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