A Long and Speaking Silence

The Singing Hills Cycle #7

by Nghi Vo

From USA Today bestselling author Nghi Vo comes a beautiful new tale in the Hugo Award-winning Singing Hills Cycle, drawn from the earliest days of Chih's career as a wandering cleric.

"Nghi Vo is so good."—NPR on The Brides of High Hill

Every story begins somewhere.

On the banks of the Ya-lé River, the town of Luntien gathers to celebrate the start of the rainy season, but the celebration is marred by the arrival of refugees from the sea. Everyone has a story about the foreigners newly in their midst—lazy, violent, unwanted—while the refugees themselves grieve the loss of the home they loved.

Cleric Chih, very recently still Novice Chih, is also a stranger in Luntien. A moment of carelessness and bad luck leaves them waiting tables as they struggle to establish themself as a real cleric. A cleric’s job is to listen and record, but the stories emerging in Luntien are ugly and violent, as hard to predict as the river itself. With their hoopoe companion Almost Brilliant by their side, Chih must help the refugees while also unraveling a mystery that may have roots in their own faraway home in the abbey of Singing Hills.

In the seventh entry of the award-winning Singing Hills series, we meet Chih and Almost Brilliant just beginning their journey together as Chih assumes their place on the road and in the world.

The novellas of the Singing Hills series are standalone stories linked by the Cleric Chih, and may be read in any order.

Genres: Fantasy, Novella, Audiobook, Fiction, Queer, LGBT, Adult

Audiobook

First published May 5, 2026

About the author

Nghi Vo is the author of the acclaimed novellas The Empress of Salt and Fortune and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain. Born in Illinois, she now lives on the shores of Lake Michigan. She believes in the ritual of lipstick, the power of stories, and the right to change your mind. The Chosen and the Beautiful is her debut novel.

Reviews

[emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

need this rn

(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
(review to come)

[Melanie (meltotheany)]

1.) The Empress of Salt and Fortune ★★★★★
2.) When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain ★★★★★
3.) Into the Riverlands ★★★★
4.) Mammoths at the Gates ★★★★
5.) The Brides of High Hill ★★★★★
6.) A Mouthful of Dust ★★★★

[Raquel Flockhart · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Begging you pardon, cleric, but we are not yet ready to be history.”

At a time when we are witnessing democratic countries closing their doors to migrants and refugees, I believe Nghi Vo has perfectly translated the terrifying reality we see every day into this fantasy world. A Long and Speaking Silence follows Chih on their first trip as a Cleric. The town of Luntien is receiving visitors to celebrate the start of the rainy season, but Muyese refugees continue to arrive, something that is not well received by the townspeople. Cleric Chih will begin to collect the names of these refugees and their families, in case they encounter any of their relatives in other towns.

For those who haven’t read any of the novellas in The Singing Hills Cycle, these are self-contained, non-chronological stories that follow Cleric Chih and their hoopoe companion, Almost Brilliant, as they travel the world collecting stories. So, although A Long and Speaking Silence is technically the seventh installment, it is a prequel to all the previous ones and can perfectly serve as an entry point into the series.

I always eagerly await the publication of these novellas because Nghi Vo has created a world that fascinates me, and because in each story she always offers the reader something unique—different stories, as well as different subgenres or narrative styles. As I mentioned at the beginning, I think a story dealing with the displacement of an entire people and the hypocrisy and unjustified hostility of host communities feels particularly timely, reminding us of the need for empathy.

This is one of the installments I’ve enjoyed the most in the series. It made me angry thinking about the injustice and suffering that hundreds of thousands of people are forced to live with every day: the persecution of migrants that we see in the news while far-right groups continue to gain more followers in democratic countries, and seeing how humanity looks the other way while a genocide is being committed. I’m not sure whether to give it 3 or 4 stars because, although I loved the author’s commentary, I wasn’t fully captivated by the story itself, and the ending in particular felt a bit underwhelming. However, it’s an installment I wholeheartedly recommend to both fans of the series and new readers.

Previous installments:
1. The Empress of Salt and Fortune ★★★★
2. When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain ★★★
3. Into the Riverlands ★★★
4. Mammoths at the Gates ★★★
5. The Brides of High Hill ★★★
6. A Mouthful of Dust ★★★

[Elsary]

OMG A PREQUEL STORY ABOUT YOUNG CHIH!!!! Look at that cover those hands are making me cry, can’t say why, I just know this is gonna be amazing. I need this in my hands asap!!

//Anyone else periodically checking if any new info about the upcoming 3 books released or is it just me with Chih and Almost Brilliant living rent-free in my head??

[Irmak ☾ · Rating 4 out of 5]

"…so day after day, the loneliness grew more at home inside her chest. It hollowed out a place next to her heart, curled up tight at first, but after a while, it started to stretch and to paw at the cage of her ribs."

it was actually nice seeing Chih as a novice cleric.

[Tijana]

Sedma stavka u ciklusu pripovedaka s istim glavnim likom ne može imati istu svežinu kao prva, a u ovom slučaju nema ni prekrasnu, složenu narativnu strukturu zbog koje su prve priče iz ovog ciklusa bile čista čitalačka radost. Ono što i dalje poseduje - a možda i u većoj meri - jeste promišljeno, nijansirano pisanje o konkretnim, višestranim i teškim društvenim situacijama kakva, recimo, može biti izbeglička kriza izazvana velikim prirodnim nepogodama. Sudar kultura i čista fizička preopterećenost društva koje mora nekako da prihvati i amortizuje (a da ne pominjemo nahrani, zaleči i uposli) navalu gladnih, iscrpljenih i umornih ljudi - to danas nikome ne deluje baš jako fantastično ali ovde je smešteno u evokativan, uverljiv i detaljno prikazan fantazijski seting, bez olakih odgovora i površnih rešenja, s bar jednim čisto fantastičnim preokretom koji čitalac može i da previdi.

(I kao i uvek kod Ni Vo, kad se dođe do hrane, njeno spisateljsko pero prosto poleti, dvaput sam ogladnela čitajući. Ne znam nikog drugog ko bi protagonistu smestio u veganski monaški red a onda mu/joj dozvolio da u svakoj izvodljivoj prilici, čim se izmigolji ispod nadzora, štrpne malo mesa.)

[Dan Trefethen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these books.

Cleric Chih has a purse stolen and so has to work in a restaurant to pay their way. Meanwhile, many immigrants are coming to town from their ravaged home islands, and not exactly welcomed. Chih tries to help as much as possible, but doesn't always understand the complexity of the situation. They are a little naive, frankly. Fortunately they have their helpmate and bird Almost Brilliant to straighten things out.

This is a bit of an origin story where Chih has just recently become a cleric rather than a novice, and their inexperience shows.

As with the previous book 'A Mouthful of Dust', Vo is incorporating some big and timely topics into these tales of capturing people's stories. in 'Dust' it was famine, and in this one it's mass immigration of refugees and the tensions that causes.

Despite the seriousness of the topics, the books have a gentleness about them due to the nature of Chih and Almost Brilliant, and the stories that people tell are often delightful vignettes or cultural legends that are, by themselves, little masterpieces of storytelling.

[Brok3n · Rating 5 out of 5]

When Chih was a young cleric

A Long and Speaking Silence is the seventh book in Nghi Vo's Singing Hills Cycle. It is probably the first of the series in chronological order.

Chih is a very young cleric. In fact, we are told near the beginning "Chih had finished their novitiate ten months earlier." They are sill a teenager, a little uncomfortable being addressed as a cleric. More than that, they are not entirely comfortable with their role as a mere recorder of stories and histories. They are in the river town Luntien, far from home, home being the Singing Hills Monastery. They are destitute, their purse having been cut when they disembarked. They are waiting table at a restaurant so as not to starve.

Luntien is a town under strain, because of a large influx of Muyese refugees, fleeing from a natural disaster. Luntien is not treating the refugees with grace or generosity. Chih does the little they can to help them out. Aside from trying to help the refugees with food, Chih and their neixin Almost Brilliant attempt to record names and family relationships of the refugees, with the hope of finding relatives who can take them in.

Chih finds it difficult -- nearly impossible, actually -- to maintain the detachment of a cleric. Besides that, they haven't yet established the comfort with Almost Brilliant that characterizes the earlier (but later in time) novellas of the series. Almost Brilliant is more of an authority figure to Chih than the friend and coworker she will become.

I enjoyed this. The story has more of a bite than the previous novellas. Chih struggles to figure out what the right thing to do is, and then to do it. They struggle with self-doubt.

Blog review.

[Danny_reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another fun addition to the Singing Hills Cycle.

In this one, we follow Chih's early days as a Cleric of the Singing Hills, as the are still learning how and when to ask the right questions. This novella also dealt a lot with racism, xenophobia, and the general discrimination faced by immigrants and refugees.

I really enjoyed the traditional stories of the island people in this one!

[Promiscuous Bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

Очень интересно было посмотреть на Чи в самом начале их пути, пожалуй, это будет у меня одна из любимых повестей в серии.

[Lee Fr · Rating 5 out of 5]

there's just something about reading bout cleric chih and their companion's adventures that makes me feel all wholesome and warm inside every single time. this once again was utterly- not ALMOST- brilliant (iykyk)

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This entry is all about refugee camps and/or communities.

[Cait]

"I don't care what they do," she muttered as chih passed by. "I truly don't. they just can't do it here."

then where? chih wanted to ask.

hilariously, I managed to miss the fact that this one, chronologically speaking, is a prequel to all the rest. I did think some timeline details were weird, but I chalked that up to it having been a while since I read the last one, you know?

anyway! in this one we briefly meet (devotees of) "the Lady of the Thousand Hands," from which I can infer that that is vo's fictional/ized version of guanyin, with whom I fell rather passionately in love as a small child (we stayed in a hotel room with a statue of her that so enamored me that my parents asked if they could perchance buy it off the hotel; the hotel, understandably, declined, and anyway I have no idea how we would have gotten it home).

some fun idioms, including "swearing fit to blister stone," and others from "the verdant islands" (fictional/ized malaysia and singapore, perhaps, especially given that the book makes reference to "ladies-in-the-water" off one of the islands) with which chih is unfamiliar ("I'll be fine. tough as a seven-day goat, that's me." / "I don't know what a seven-day goat is," chih said with interest; "I am not getting brained by the gods for dancing when it wasn't my turn to do so." / chih resolved to ask bich about that saying later).

as usual, vo's worldbuilding and detail work are lovely (a wooden statue of a woman holding her robe open to show the dog snarling between her bare legs), this time in the service of exploring the tensions that so often arise in times of hardship when a local population is increased by an influx of immigrants and refugees and no one is a perfect saint but everyone is a human being and a brand-new cleric is working hard, and often failing, to get everything right.

"easy was only something you knew how to do. easy's just experience and practice and time put together until you don't notice them any longer. one day, something you coudn't dream of doing a year ago is something you can do without thought, and you think it must have always been that way, but that's not true."

[Shannon Miz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great installment in The Singing Hills novella series, though I am not even surprised at this point- I head into them simply knowing I am going to get a great story. In this one, we follow Chih when they're a newer cleric, and they're still kind of feeling out how to get people to tell them stories. We get a glimpse into how Chih ended up a cleric, and some of the stumbles that inevitably occur when one is just starting out. There's some great commentary on how difficult life can be for a refugee, and some great reflection on shared humanity. This installment is a bit quieter, but I definitely enjoyed it all the same!

[Kailyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love!! I was so excited for a new Singing Hills book and this one was great! Loved the discussion around refugees and what it means to carry your home with you even if you can’t be there. Beautifully done and a redemption for me after really not vibing with the last novella in this series. I love Almost Brilliant and Chih!

[heptagrammaton · Rating 3 out of 5]

One day, everyone will have always born our silence.

[Katha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like all the other books in this series, this one was quite short, but as always, very entertaining and enjoyable. I love our two main characters.
I always find the stories they tell and the ones told to them so interesting and fascinating. Probably because all these stories come from a culture different to my own.

[Thush · Rating 5 out of 5]

As always, I love the way Vo weaves Chih's journey and the stories they hear during their journey. This book mixed an almost coming-of-age story for Chih as a newly minted cleric with a story of the bitter sweetness many immigrants face in their new "home".
I love oral storytelling and the writing style of this book (and all in the series) embodies that spirit. I also like how all the books in series stay true to Chih's purpose as cleric of the Singing Hills abbey and lets everyones stories unfold before Chih. While they might get involved in the periphery, they are never the main character, merely an observer and record keeper.

[toloveabook · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4 stars) I received a free advanced copy from the publisher. This is my honest review. The latest installment of the Singing Hills Cycle does not disappoint! We follow a young Chih during their early months as a cleric. After having their purse stolen, they are waiting tables in a new village until a they are able to obtain enough money to move on. As the village prepares for a large festival, violence simmers as tensions grow between the villagers and refugees fleeing their homeland. A LONG AND SPEAKING SILENCE is a beautiful story about the power of storytelling and remembrance, as well as the importance of empathy and friendship. This series continues to be one of my favorites!

[Duncan Morin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nghi Vo does it again and this time also rubs salt directly into my eyes in the last 5 minutes... 😭

[Charles Dain · Rating 3 out of 5]

A mixed bag for me, and one that I may need to re-visit in the future to digest a second time. It's a bit less focused than previous books in the series. Previous entries featured gripping central narratives, but this one takes a meandering approach, with Chih navigating a city in the midst of a refugee crisis. There are no grand revelations or conclusions here, which I am now realizing may very well have been a deliberate choice. All books in the Singing Hills Cycle focus on a different aspect of storytelling. In A Long and Speaking Silence, however, the central thesis is about the tragedy of forgotten and lost stories. Entire lineages forgotten across a refugee diaspora, historical records lost in imperial purges, personal histories that no one bothered to write down. It's all a bit uncertain, but what I struggled with was how the various plotlines in the book didn't really coalesce into a cohesive narrative for me. Additionally, and this is a petty complaint, but I was disappointed that the fantastical elements took a back seat to old-fashioned human problems. I don't know, I'm rating a 3 for now, but may upgrade it to a 4 after a re-read or some reflection.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

“They are too many, Chih thought, and then their stomach flopped, because no. There could be too little food, too little water, too little money, too little kindness, too little sense; there were never too many people.”

A Long and Speaking Silence follows Cleric Chih just after they’ve shifted from Novice to Cleric, and as such it takes place earlier in the series as a sort of prequel chronologically. The Chih here is naive, uncertain, and struggling to discern when and how to effectively challenge the discriminatory treatment that they witness displaced people being subjected to.

This story – and indeed this series – deals with some serious themes while maintaining a sort of softness. Here, those themes are home, identity, and diasporic experience; the series is unified by its exploration of the importance of stories and remembering.

Note: this is the seventh book in the Singing Hills series. The plot is relatively self-contained but the novella presumes a lot of worldbuilding that takes place in prior instalments. I think that this could be read as a standalone but I wouldn’t necessarily suggest it as the reader would be missing out on a lot.

Content warnings: grief, displacement, xenophobia

Thank you to Tor Publishing Group / Tordotcom, NetGalley, and the author for providing me an ARC to review.

[Regina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Singing Hills books can be read in any order so it's no shock to open the seventh book and find Chih when they begin their work as a cleric collecting stories. It's quite a hook to see them struggling and figuring out how to approach their task, the difference between them and their experienced neixin Almost Brilliant stark but already affectionate!

The theme of this volume is refugees and at a lot of times, it feels very close to current times although this takes place in a fictional, magical and old-timey queernormative world. I think this only shows how refugees and migration have always existed and are not a new occurance that should or could be stopped somehow. Nghi Vo gives the refugees compassion, agency, rich culture and backstories that make it completely clear they aren't a mere menace or burden and anyone or their family can find themself in a situation of migration or need. The topic of story collection is weaved in slowly but masterfully and absolutely moving - it may be harder to collect the histories and lore of migrants but it's only more vital because the stories are easily lost.

[Chantaal · Rating 3 out of 5]

I always love this series and I always enjoy every novella. Going back to Cleric Chih's early days was really nice, and this entry focused on themes around immigration that are way too relevant to our cultural landscape today. The title was a very interesting take on immigration and displacement of peoples and cultures, which I think is always the biggest strength of these books - looking at themes from different angles. I just wish there was a tiiiiiny bit more meat to the theme, as the novella just sort of...ends.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

We all need to find our home and our in the world. That's the message our young novice Cleric Chih learns in A Long and Speaking Silence. In this seventh book, we come back to the beginning of their journey with neixin spirit Almost Brilliant, unsure of themselves and their mission in a bitter world. Like with all of the Singing Hills Cycle books, we are treated to a range of storytelling, much of it this time through the eyes of children.

I always enjoy a new entry in the Singing Hills Cycle. They can be picked up in nearly any order, as the journey is nonsequential. If you've read one before, you know what to expect. If you haven't, our cleric Chih and their spirit friend collect stories on their journey from town to town. They are low on plot and high on theme. Each one is a joy to read.

Thank you to Tordotcom for an eARC. A Long and Speaking Silence is out 5/5/2026.

[Vini · Rating 3 out of 5]

these books are so cozy and fun i really love them! this one wasn't my favorite bc it's kind of a prequel, and it took me too long to realize that. i need someone to make a chronological order of the books and to reread all of them bc i forget a lot. but this had such an interesting exploration of immigration and xenophobia!!

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was so good! I love this series, and this might be one of my favorite entries.

This is when Cleric Chih was just starting out, and they were very newly made into a cleric. On a mission with Almost Brilliant, their money is stolen, so they have to take a job at a restaurant in a waterfront town. There are a lot of immigrants coming to this town, and tensions between the locals and immigrants. There's a deeper story about Singing Hills that had its own exodus when the emperor at the time was persecuting them. This felt very timely and nuanced to me.

[Caroline Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

a prequel to the rest of the series, when Chih has just gotten their start as a cleric and honestly isn’t great at it. a little underwhelmed with this one

[Eshana Ranasinghe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great addition to the series 😭 I was crying at the end and I don't even know why!!

[mads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm convinced this series can't have a bad book. I loved getting to go back into the beginning of Chih's career. Nghi Vo masterfully wrote a younger, less sure version of them while still maintaining the character you love.

Great installment. I really do recommend this series.