Excellent character development and lush world-building

I am a fan of Julie Dao and I'm excited to go back to her world of Feng Lu. Mentions of characters from her first two books pop up but this story is centered around Lan, a young noble woman, and Bao, a poor orphan and a physician's apprentice. There's a case of mistaken identities and deception that leaves Lan heart-broken. Bao, complicit in the deception, truly loves her but is rejected out of anger and hurt. The first ~50 pages are gripping and Dao writes gorgeously. In just these few chapters, we get a good sense of who the characters are, what the world's expectations are for them, and what the major political and personal conflicts will be. The cover lined with poppies is beautiful and this design also appears on the first pages of each chapter! I will definitely be reading this when it comes out because I'm curious how the individual characters' arcs will interest with the larger problems facing their world.