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The Girl with a Thousand Faces
A haunting dark urban fantasy set in historical Hong Kong, where ancient myths and local legends combine in a story of ghosts, grief and women who will not forgive.
Mercy Chan is a triad exorcist with a mysterious past. After washing up on the shores of Hong Kong with no memory during World War II, she found a home in Kowloon Walled City, an infamous, ghost-infested slum full of lost and traumatised civilians. Since the war ended, Mercy has rebuilt her life and found work as a ghost-talker for the local triad, dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt this place.
But the past she can’t remember won’t let her go. An unusually powerful ghost lurks in Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. Unnervingly, it claims to know Mercy – and her forgotten childhood.
As Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realise that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.
Mercy Chan is a triad exorcist with a mysterious past. After washing up on the shores of Hong Kong with no memory during World War II, she found a home in Kowloon Walled City, an infamous, ghost-infested slum full of lost and traumatised civilians. Since the war ended, Mercy has rebuilt her life and found work as a ghost-talker for the local triad, dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt this place.
But the past she can’t remember won’t let her go. An unusually powerful ghost lurks in Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. Unnervingly, it claims to know Mercy – and her forgotten childhood.
As Mercy is drawn into a deadly cat-and-mouse game with this malignant spirit, she begins to realise that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.
14 pages, Audiobook
First published May 5, 2026
About the author
Sunyi Dean
15 books1,972 followersFacebook || Instagram ||Threads || Bluesky ||
Sunyi Dean is a writer of speculative fiction. Originally born in Texas and raised in Hong Kong, she now resides in a Yorkshire cottage full of music and books.
Her most recent novel, THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND FACES, was inspired by her upbringing: her old high school was once a mission house on the edge of the original Walled City, and her grandparents survived the Japanese occupation during WW2.
In her spare time, she likes buying whisky, collecting dumbbells, and dying in jiu-jitsu. She also founded the Hugo-nominated Publishing Rodeo Podcast with fellow Tor author, Scott Drakeford.
Sunyi Dean is a writer of speculative fiction. Originally born in Texas and raised in Hong Kong, she now resides in a Yorkshire cottage full of music and books.
Her most recent novel, THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND FACES, was inspired by her upbringing: her old high school was once a mission house on the edge of the original Walled City, and her grandparents survived the Japanese occupation during WW2.
In her spare time, she likes buying whisky, collecting dumbbells, and dying in jiu-jitsu. She also founded the Hugo-nominated Publishing Rodeo Podcast with fellow Tor author, Scott Drakeford.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,341 reviews
July 13, 2026
"ghost-talker" is my new dream job.
and this was fun and twisty. i liked how it played with perspective and timeline, withholding memory and shifting identity so the reader's allegiance is malleable.
i enjoyed the beginning scenes in hong kong's city of ghosts fine, and i was fascinated if overwhelmed by the long revealing sequence of the middle, and i wanted a little more drama and action in the end, but overall? i'm impressed!!
bottom line: thankful this book almost lived up to its amazing title and cover.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
and this was fun and twisty. i liked how it played with perspective and timeline, withholding memory and shifting identity so the reader's allegiance is malleable.
i enjoyed the beginning scenes in hong kong's city of ghosts fine, and i was fascinated if overwhelmed by the long revealing sequence of the middle, and i wanted a little more drama and action in the end, but overall? i'm impressed!!
bottom line: thankful this book almost lived up to its amazing title and cover.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
January 12, 2026
Generational trauma is perpetual but so are cats! (no I will not elaborate)
A ghost-talker confronts her missing past and the ghosts that linger in Sunyi Dean’s historical gothic feat, The Girl with a Thousand Faces. It feels like eons since I first discovered Sunyi Dean and drifting back into her work feels as languorous as a cat taking a long stretch in the sun—entirely out of sorts with the actual tone of Dean’s sophomore novel: a historical gothic fantasy all about ghosts and the cycles we perpetuate. The Girl with a Thousand Faces is as cutthroat as the ghosts left to steep in sadness, anger, and regret. At the helm, Mercy Chan, a fifty something ghost talker with a mysterious past facing down a ghostly killer intent on forcing her to confront her own forgotten ghosts. The Girl with a Thousand Faces makes the reader into a kind of specter, wandering Kowloon Walled City alongside Mercy as she unravels the past. Dragged down deep into waters ancient and strange, Sunyi Dean weaves a startling narrative that will have you questioning the true villains, be they paranormal or man made. Vindictive ghosts are one thing, but Dean’s true talent lies in her glimpse into the real horror beneath, the devastations of war, grief, and generational traumas—with everything a cost of ignoring that pain. Brave this strange ghostly saga and whatever you do don’t look down.
Read my review
thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy.
Bookstagram | Blog
A ghost-talker confronts her missing past and the ghosts that linger in Sunyi Dean’s historical gothic feat, The Girl with a Thousand Faces. It feels like eons since I first discovered Sunyi Dean and drifting back into her work feels as languorous as a cat taking a long stretch in the sun—entirely out of sorts with the actual tone of Dean’s sophomore novel: a historical gothic fantasy all about ghosts and the cycles we perpetuate. The Girl with a Thousand Faces is as cutthroat as the ghosts left to steep in sadness, anger, and regret. At the helm, Mercy Chan, a fifty something ghost talker with a mysterious past facing down a ghostly killer intent on forcing her to confront her own forgotten ghosts. The Girl with a Thousand Faces makes the reader into a kind of specter, wandering Kowloon Walled City alongside Mercy as she unravels the past. Dragged down deep into waters ancient and strange, Sunyi Dean weaves a startling narrative that will have you questioning the true villains, be they paranormal or man made. Vindictive ghosts are one thing, but Dean’s true talent lies in her glimpse into the real horror beneath, the devastations of war, grief, and generational traumas—with everything a cost of ignoring that pain. Brave this strange ghostly saga and whatever you do don’t look down.
Read my review
thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with an advance copy.
Bookstagram | Blog
July 1, 2026
Definitely top 5 favorite read of the year so far!!
This reminded me of when I read The Locked Tomb series- that feeling of having a good time while still not entirely sure what was happening and then things click and it just gets out of this world amazing!!
Taking place in a slum in an alternate history post-war Hong Kong where ghosts and supernatural entities exist and are mostly treated as pests.
Our MC is a “ghost talker”- which is an exorcist of sorts, except instead of banishing the spirits, she talks to them, and gets to the root of why they’re haunting the world in the first place. She has a ghost cat companion, and they’re forced to go up against a particularly destructive ghost, or else the slum they live in will be destroyed.
This is a new favorite!! It’s brutal (lots of graphic violence and gore-y bits), creepy, devastating at times, while still being fun and entertaining. And, it’s WEIRD!!! Right from the very beginning I knew I was gonna love this, but then the story structure changes about halfway through and I wasn’t so sure about what was happening, but once you realize what’s going on, omg it’s just so mind blowing and unexpected and I just loved every second of it.
Simply phenomenal!!!
This reminded me of when I read The Locked Tomb series- that feeling of having a good time while still not entirely sure what was happening and then things click and it just gets out of this world amazing!!
Taking place in a slum in an alternate history post-war Hong Kong where ghosts and supernatural entities exist and are mostly treated as pests.
Our MC is a “ghost talker”- which is an exorcist of sorts, except instead of banishing the spirits, she talks to them, and gets to the root of why they’re haunting the world in the first place. She has a ghost cat companion, and they’re forced to go up against a particularly destructive ghost, or else the slum they live in will be destroyed.
This is a new favorite!! It’s brutal (lots of graphic violence and gore-y bits), creepy, devastating at times, while still being fun and entertaining. And, it’s WEIRD!!! Right from the very beginning I knew I was gonna love this, but then the story structure changes about halfway through and I wasn’t so sure about what was happening, but once you realize what’s going on, omg it’s just so mind blowing and unexpected and I just loved every second of it.
Simply phenomenal!!!
May 16, 2026
This didn't end up being the all-time favorite read that I was hoping for, but I still have to admire the author for telling an intriguing ghost story full of grief, vengeance and memory through such an unusual and bold narrative structure. This book certainly wasn't what I expected when I first picked it up and it also never stopped playing with my expectations as the story went on. I loved the first introduction that I got to this world. It's 1975 in the Walled City of Kowloon where the days are hot, the atmosphere is dark and the ghosts are plenty. It's the place where 50-something-year-old Mercy Chan works as a ghost talker for a triad queen, together with her ghost cat Bao. (I will never leave a cat unmentioned in my reviews, and Bao is important to me and to the story.) Nowadays Mercy is badass, snarky and just has her shit together, but her past is another thing entirely. She once washed up on a shore with no memories of her prior life, but she was already heavily scared and had a unexplainable violent nature. In present day she gets wrapped up in the planned demolition of Kowloon and in multiple unusual murders, and I was ready to read a 400+ page book of all of that. But the author had other plans and spends a good chunk of the book on telling the backstory of multiple characters thirty-three years in the past instead. It's what I meant when I mentioned the unusual and bold narrative structure, but I have to be honest: the change of pace kinda killed the original momentum for me. I had a hard time getting into the backstory, set in WWII when China was occupied by the Japanese, but overall I can see what Sunyi Dean tried to do here. And I also think that her plan worked out, just not super smoothly. But I found myself slowly invested in the past storyline and I also was rewarded for my patience with a pretty good twist. For a long time I had problems with seeing this as one coherent story, but now I can think about it as a whole. It's a story about war and trauma shaping people, about being driven by hate and rage, but also about being haunted by terrible decisions. There's a bleak and hopeless atmosphere throughout the whole book and even though it's a fantasy novel, it felt very grounded in reality and in human emotion. At parts it read like a horror novel, at parts the real-life war history took over and then it turned into a supernatural ghost story again. (At one point I even thought that it might turn into a monster romance, but fortunately the book didn't go that far.) It was quite the experience and it really had me involved in the story of two women throughout their lives (and deaths). I'm sure that this book will appeal to many readers, but be sure to expect the unexpected with this one.
Make sure to also check out AG's review when it's up. We did a buddy read :)
Huge thanks to NetGalley and HarperVoyager for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.
Make sure to also check out AG's review when it's up. We did a buddy read :)
Huge thanks to NetGalley and HarperVoyager for providing a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
⭐️ 4.25 ⭐️ This was so much more than a simple story about a ghost talker who washed up on the shores of Hong Kong to find refuge in ghost-infested slums of Kowloon Walled City. It's a moving story about generational trauma, war, pain told through a lens of Chinese folklore. This book has the most organic blend of all the genres that I love-fantasy, horror, historical fiction. If you're looking for a more diverse read with a kick of magical realism, vengeance for past wrongdoings, look no further! The Girl with a Thousand Faces is a deeply heartfelt book that honors the forgotten and simply takes your breath away with its melodic prose.
Since the story takes place during WWII, the ghosts in this story are victims of violence and linger in the city of Kowloon, Hong Kong. In 1975 timeline (now), Mercy-Chan is a middle aged ghost talker (in her 50's) who helps the trapped spirits attain their justice. Her life is upended when a very powerful ghost comes to this city and causes havoc. It claims to know all about Mercy-Chan, her past secrets (some of which are best left forgot). Having no memories of her past, this fact begins to haunt her. The story then flips narrators in the second part of the book and we enter a past timeline where a mother and daughter, Siu Yin flee Hong Kong. They move to an island that is inhabited by ghosts but the island has a murky past with a darkness that calls to Siu Yin. The middle portion of flashbacks adds more depth and context to Mercy's life but doesn't answer all the questions until the very last part of the novel where everything comes together.. but with a twist.
Just look at this beautiful cover, it's stunning and should be enough to convince you to read this. What I loved the most about this book was how grief, sadness, sorrow was layered in all the crevices of this novel. It's a lush gothic tale about women who cannot forgive and the power of forgiveness. Beyond the mystery, the story is about the inherited generational pain. The suffering is perfectly presented in the backdrop of war where forgiveness almost seems impossible. The hurt is like a cycle, going from one person to the next unless that chain is broken. The idea of the girl wearing a thousand faces is a metaphor for emotional wounds that we hide behind many faces we put on. I absolutely encourage you to read this!
Narrator: Natalie Naudus (award winning!)
Duration: 13 hours and 2 minutes
Speed: 1.25x
Many thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio/Tor Books and the author, Sunyi Dean for an early ALC!
Publication date: May 5, 2026
Since the story takes place during WWII, the ghosts in this story are victims of violence and linger in the city of Kowloon, Hong Kong. In 1975 timeline (now), Mercy-Chan is a middle aged ghost talker (in her 50's) who helps the trapped spirits attain their justice. Her life is upended when a very powerful ghost comes to this city and causes havoc. It claims to know all about Mercy-Chan, her past secrets (some of which are best left forgot). Having no memories of her past, this fact begins to haunt her. The story then flips narrators in the second part of the book and we enter a past timeline where a mother and daughter, Siu Yin flee Hong Kong. They move to an island that is inhabited by ghosts but the island has a murky past with a darkness that calls to Siu Yin. The middle portion of flashbacks adds more depth and context to Mercy's life but doesn't answer all the questions until the very last part of the novel where everything comes together.. but with a twist.
Just look at this beautiful cover, it's stunning and should be enough to convince you to read this. What I loved the most about this book was how grief, sadness, sorrow was layered in all the crevices of this novel. It's a lush gothic tale about women who cannot forgive and the power of forgiveness. Beyond the mystery, the story is about the inherited generational pain. The suffering is perfectly presented in the backdrop of war where forgiveness almost seems impossible. The hurt is like a cycle, going from one person to the next unless that chain is broken. The idea of the girl wearing a thousand faces is a metaphor for emotional wounds that we hide behind many faces we put on. I absolutely encourage you to read this!
Narrator: Natalie Naudus (award winning!)
Duration: 13 hours and 2 minutes
Speed: 1.25x
Many thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio/Tor Books and the author, Sunyi Dean for an early ALC!
Publication date: May 5, 2026
May 8, 2026
4.5 ★— What a journey this was! I clearly should have read this earlier, as it’s been on my TBR for a while and I could have used a book like this to get me out of my reading slump.
Following Mercy Chan, a ghost talker living in 70s Hong Kong, this book portrays her past set against the backdrop of Japan’s occupation of China, and her present life in the aftermath of it.
And wow, wow, wow! I did not know this book would take me where it did. Mercy was a great main character to follow, and I appreciated so much that she was a woman in her 50s, when the fantasy genre is mostly dominated by younger protagonists.
Slightly grouchy, snarky, and clearly shaped by multiple decades of her job, I loved that she was a character who fully embraced the shades of gray she exists in, while still fostering her own sense of morality and care amidst the more harsh and unsettling environment surrounding her.
This book goes in a direction I didn’t expect as Mercy investigates the mystery of the myriad of people turning up dead, and I was floored by how Dean managed to intricately weave a tale of loss, betrayal, complicated family bonds, and the darkest shades of human nature. This was all so raw and poignant and also often devastating, letting me as the reader stew in the emotional weight of everything unfolding on the page.
The last sentence of this story cemented my feelings about the book as I was basically mute for a solid hour after finishing my read. I really recommend this book to anyone who’s looking for fantasy that doesn’t follow a cookie-cutter formula and is craving freshness in the genre!
🎧Audiobook Notes
🎙️ Narration Style: Solo
⭐ Listener Rating: 5/5
I honestly can’t even overstate how good this narrator was and how well she portrayed Mercy in her different stages of life. Her voice was so perfect and practically made me desperate to keep my AirPods in my ears, as I wanted to see how this story continued! I fully recommend this to audiobook lovers, as listening felt just as good as reading!
________
Thank you to Tor for the ARC and to Macmillan Audio for the ALC.
Following Mercy Chan, a ghost talker living in 70s Hong Kong, this book portrays her past set against the backdrop of Japan’s occupation of China, and her present life in the aftermath of it.
And wow, wow, wow! I did not know this book would take me where it did. Mercy was a great main character to follow, and I appreciated so much that she was a woman in her 50s, when the fantasy genre is mostly dominated by younger protagonists.
Slightly grouchy, snarky, and clearly shaped by multiple decades of her job, I loved that she was a character who fully embraced the shades of gray she exists in, while still fostering her own sense of morality and care amidst the more harsh and unsettling environment surrounding her.
This book goes in a direction I didn’t expect as Mercy investigates the mystery of the myriad of people turning up dead, and I was floored by how Dean managed to intricately weave a tale of loss, betrayal, complicated family bonds, and the darkest shades of human nature. This was all so raw and poignant and also often devastating, letting me as the reader stew in the emotional weight of everything unfolding on the page.
The last sentence of this story cemented my feelings about the book as I was basically mute for a solid hour after finishing my read. I really recommend this book to anyone who’s looking for fantasy that doesn’t follow a cookie-cutter formula and is craving freshness in the genre!
🎧Audiobook Notes
🎙️ Narration Style: Solo
⭐ Listener Rating: 5/5
I honestly can’t even overstate how good this narrator was and how well she portrayed Mercy in her different stages of life. Her voice was so perfect and practically made me desperate to keep my AirPods in my ears, as I wanted to see how this story continued! I fully recommend this to audiobook lovers, as listening felt just as good as reading!
________
Thank you to Tor for the ARC and to Macmillan Audio for the ALC.
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July 8, 2026Read for my Pride reading vlog: https://youtu.be/jq_ia1RdAZs
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January 7, 2026
Book Riot’s Most Anticipated Books of 2026:
Sunyi Dean's debut novel, The Book Eaters, was a bloody good time and one of my favorite books of 2022, so I was wicked excited to learn she has a new book coming in 2026! It's a historical dark fantasy set in Hong Kong about a woman named Mercy Chan. Mercy arrived in Kowloon years earlier with no memory of who she is and has since made a life as a ghost talker for the triad. But then a murderous spirit starts drowning people, and catches Mercy's attention. The spirit claims to know her and her unremembered past. And if Mercy can't remember where she came from and how she ended up in Kowloon, it may drag her down into the depths for good. —Liberty Hardy
Sunyi Dean's debut novel, The Book Eaters, was a bloody good time and one of my favorite books of 2022, so I was wicked excited to learn she has a new book coming in 2026! It's a historical dark fantasy set in Hong Kong about a woman named Mercy Chan. Mercy arrived in Kowloon years earlier with no memory of who she is and has since made a life as a ghost talker for the triad. But then a murderous spirit starts drowning people, and catches Mercy's attention. The spirit claims to know her and her unremembered past. And if Mercy can't remember where she came from and how she ended up in Kowloon, it may drag her down into the depths for good. —Liberty Hardy
July 10, 2026
An intricate, immersive fantasy rooted in Hong Kong’s troubled history. Sunyi Dean’s inventive novel moves between an imagined version of Hong Kong in the 1970s and Hong Kong during WW2 not long after 1941’s “Black Christmas” when Japanese forces invaded, brutally suppressing any and all resistance. In the seventies Mercy Chan lives in Kowloon’s Walled City, a lawless place where ghosts, exorcists and ghost talkers, like her, roam free. Accompanied by Bao her maogui, a shape-shifting cat spirit, she’s employed by triad boss Cobra Lily, hired out to deal with restless ghosts – Cobra Lily echoes the real-life, triad bosses who once dominated Kowloon Walled City before it was torn down and redeveloped in the 1990s.
Mercy came to Kowloon during the war decades earlier, all memory of her previous existence erased. It’s now her home, both tight-knit community space and trauma site: the spiritual pain, the horrors of the war still permeating its densely-populated streets and houses. But now a fierce, demonic spirit is haunting the Walled City, a spirit who urges Mercy to recover her lost memories. Cobra Lily assigns Mercy to deal with this entity, its malevolent presence and murderous acts threaten a lucrative, real-estate deal – one that echoes aspects of Hong Kong’s actual past. As Mercy struggles to carry out her task, the narrative shifts between her present and events of the 1940s gradually revealing her terrifying origins. All of which leads to a wholly unexpected twist, making it difficult to know exactly who or what to root for; fast-paced action giving way to a more meditative exploration. The pacing in the second half could be a little tighter but, otherwise, an impressive reworking of Hong Kong’s history, folklore and mythology.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher HarperCollins for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
Mercy came to Kowloon during the war decades earlier, all memory of her previous existence erased. It’s now her home, both tight-knit community space and trauma site: the spiritual pain, the horrors of the war still permeating its densely-populated streets and houses. But now a fierce, demonic spirit is haunting the Walled City, a spirit who urges Mercy to recover her lost memories. Cobra Lily assigns Mercy to deal with this entity, its malevolent presence and murderous acts threaten a lucrative, real-estate deal – one that echoes aspects of Hong Kong’s actual past. As Mercy struggles to carry out her task, the narrative shifts between her present and events of the 1940s gradually revealing her terrifying origins. All of which leads to a wholly unexpected twist, making it difficult to know exactly who or what to root for; fast-paced action giving way to a more meditative exploration. The pacing in the second half could be a little tighter but, otherwise, an impressive reworking of Hong Kong’s history, folklore and mythology.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher HarperCollins for an ARC
Rating: 3.5
July 20, 2026
This is a beautiful and heartbreaking story.
I loved the writing, the atmosphere and the characters' journey.
I would recommend the audiobook version, the narrator was fantastic.
I loved the writing, the atmosphere and the characters' journey.
I would recommend the audiobook version, the narrator was fantastic.
June 24, 2026
I love the book
April 2, 2026
Thank you so much for the arc HarperCollins UK | HarperFiction | HarperVoyager!
„But home is never more beautiful than when
you see it for the last time.“
🌊rogue spirits
🪦ghost-infested slum
🌊memory loss
🪦ghost-talker
🌊early-fifties protagonist
„The past is an endless ocean on which we can sail forever without returning home.“
What I liked:
- The plot twist was soo good! I thought I’d figured it out but it was way more complex than I thought. It makes me want to reread the story to notice all the little hints and informations I missed!
- I absolutely loved the worldbuilding! Mostly set in a ghost-infested slum, an unpopular relic of the last World War, filled with ghosts and people who never had the chance to recover from the horrors of the Japanese occupation. The whole story is about traumatized individuals trying to survive, and even ghosts are not spared from exploitation and betrayal. The way ghosts were used and treated during the war was a twist I found especially interesting and sadly realistic if humanity were ever able to use them.
- Bao, the murdery ghost-cat! I love him and I would read a whole book just about him!
What I didn’t like:
- Some parts felt a tad too slow for me, but it didn’t bother me much.
„If each person only corrects the crimes that they have committed themselves, then the world will be full of pain, because evil men do not care about injustice, and so never correct their own.“
✍🏻 Writing style: 4,75/5
👥 Characters: 5/5
🌍 Worldbuilding: 5/5
📝 Story & Plot: 5/5
✨ Vibes: 5/5
•Is this my go-to genre? yes
•Will I buy a physical copy: yes
•Will I read more books by the author: yes
„But home is never more beautiful than when
you see it for the last time.“
🌊rogue spirits
🪦ghost-infested slum
🌊memory loss
🪦ghost-talker
🌊early-fifties protagonist
„The past is an endless ocean on which we can sail forever without returning home.“
What I liked:
- The plot twist was soo good! I thought I’d figured it out but it was way more complex than I thought. It makes me want to reread the story to notice all the little hints and informations I missed!
- I absolutely loved the worldbuilding! Mostly set in a ghost-infested slum, an unpopular relic of the last World War, filled with ghosts and people who never had the chance to recover from the horrors of the Japanese occupation. The whole story is about traumatized individuals trying to survive, and even ghosts are not spared from exploitation and betrayal. The way ghosts were used and treated during the war was a twist I found especially interesting and sadly realistic if humanity were ever able to use them.
- Bao, the murdery ghost-cat! I love him and I would read a whole book just about him!
What I didn’t like:
- Some parts felt a tad too slow for me, but it didn’t bother me much.
„If each person only corrects the crimes that they have committed themselves, then the world will be full of pain, because evil men do not care about injustice, and so never correct their own.“
✍🏻 Writing style: 4,75/5
👥 Characters: 5/5
🌍 Worldbuilding: 5/5
📝 Story & Plot: 5/5
✨ Vibes: 5/5
•Is this my go-to genre? yes
•Will I buy a physical copy: yes
•Will I read more books by the author: yes
May 28, 2026
I absolutely adored Sunyi Dean’s debut, The Book Eaters, so I have been dying for something new from her ever since, and let me tell you, The Girl with a Thousand Faces was so worth the wait. It truly shows that this book has been cooking for a good while because it is such a wildly inventive and hella unique tale, and it's executed to near perfection. This is pure gothic, grotesque, heartbreaking, ghost-ridden chaos, and I honestly inhaled it like a woman possessed.
From the very first page, everything about The Girl With a Thousand Faces felt so refreshing, and it immediately had me in a chokehold. I mean, who would not be hooked by the setup of a fifty-year-old ghost talker with a mysterious past she cannot remember, facing down a ghostly killer intent on forcing her to confront her own forgotten ghosts? Mercy Chan instantly became one of those characters I would follow absolutely anywhere, even directly into filthy gutters and emotional devastation, and I loved her for that.
But then Sunyi Dean pulls the rug out from under you and suddenly shifts the narrative back to WWII Hong Kong following a completely different character, which could so easily have lost me but somehow that only made me more obsessed. Also, I know second person POV can be hit or miss for people, but holy smokes, was it executed perfectly here. The themes of cycles of trauma, violence, war, grief, vengeance, and inherited pain are masterfully woven into the narrative, and I loved how the emotional core of The Girl With a Thousand Faces never got lost as the story only got more intricate and complex.
I will admit there were a few moments where my brain briefly melted trying to piece together how everyone was relating to everyone else, especially with the whole body swap situation getting increasingly messy, but the confusion honestly almost worked in the book’s favour because the entire story already feels slippery and feverish and haunted in the best way. Moreover, the audiobook genuinely helped so much for me because Natalie Naudus made every single character and voice sound so distinct and emotionally wrecked in their own unique way, and paired with Sunyi Dean’s divine prose, it honestly became such an immersive experience. The folkloric vibes of this The Girl with a Thousand Faces absolutely shine in audio form, and I just adored how the emotions practically dripped off every word.
And do not get me started on the atmosphere, wow. The Chinese folklore influences woven throughout this story are truly immaculate, and I loved how the different historical settings almost felt like their own characters with their own emotions. The lingering ghosts, the waterways, the claustrophobic alleyways of Kowloon, and the constant dreadful sense that the past is festering underneath everything and refusing to stay buried all had me so captivated. The Girl with a Thousand Faces honestly feels damp and angry and hungry in the best way possible, and I ate that up.
By the end, I may or may not have felt a bit too dumb to truly get everything this book was trying to do, but I was honestly way too busy being completely awe-struck by that final twist to really care. Whether you come for the mystery, the stunning prose, the unique structure, the Asian history and folklore vibes, the ghosts, or just the absolutely delicious emotional turmoil, The Girl with a Thousand Faces delivers it all. Sunyi Dean is doing something genuinely special and strange and unforgettable with her stories, and I already know this one is going to haunt me for a very long time to come.
From the very first page, everything about The Girl With a Thousand Faces felt so refreshing, and it immediately had me in a chokehold. I mean, who would not be hooked by the setup of a fifty-year-old ghost talker with a mysterious past she cannot remember, facing down a ghostly killer intent on forcing her to confront her own forgotten ghosts? Mercy Chan instantly became one of those characters I would follow absolutely anywhere, even directly into filthy gutters and emotional devastation, and I loved her for that.
But then Sunyi Dean pulls the rug out from under you and suddenly shifts the narrative back to WWII Hong Kong following a completely different character, which could so easily have lost me but somehow that only made me more obsessed. Also, I know second person POV can be hit or miss for people, but holy smokes, was it executed perfectly here. The themes of cycles of trauma, violence, war, grief, vengeance, and inherited pain are masterfully woven into the narrative, and I loved how the emotional core of The Girl With a Thousand Faces never got lost as the story only got more intricate and complex.
I will admit there were a few moments where my brain briefly melted trying to piece together how everyone was relating to everyone else, especially with the whole body swap situation getting increasingly messy, but the confusion honestly almost worked in the book’s favour because the entire story already feels slippery and feverish and haunted in the best way. Moreover, the audiobook genuinely helped so much for me because Natalie Naudus made every single character and voice sound so distinct and emotionally wrecked in their own unique way, and paired with Sunyi Dean’s divine prose, it honestly became such an immersive experience. The folkloric vibes of this The Girl with a Thousand Faces absolutely shine in audio form, and I just adored how the emotions practically dripped off every word.
And do not get me started on the atmosphere, wow. The Chinese folklore influences woven throughout this story are truly immaculate, and I loved how the different historical settings almost felt like their own characters with their own emotions. The lingering ghosts, the waterways, the claustrophobic alleyways of Kowloon, and the constant dreadful sense that the past is festering underneath everything and refusing to stay buried all had me so captivated. The Girl with a Thousand Faces honestly feels damp and angry and hungry in the best way possible, and I ate that up.
By the end, I may or may not have felt a bit too dumb to truly get everything this book was trying to do, but I was honestly way too busy being completely awe-struck by that final twist to really care. Whether you come for the mystery, the stunning prose, the unique structure, the Asian history and folklore vibes, the ghosts, or just the absolutely delicious emotional turmoil, The Girl with a Thousand Faces delivers it all. Sunyi Dean is doing something genuinely special and strange and unforgettable with her stories, and I already know this one is going to haunt me for a very long time to come.
June 27, 2026
MEMORY 🪞 DEPTH 🌊 RECKONING ⚖️ An amnesiac ghost talker living in Kowloon Walled City in 1970's Hong Kong is pulled toward a powerful spirit and a past she cannot remember. This is an intricate, beautifully written ghost story about grief, family, war, and inherited pain; one I found genuinely compelling even when its moral voice became a little too insistent for me.
This is such an interesting, layered book. I really enjoyed it. It has lovely prose, an intricate story, and a great deal to say about grief: it deeply explores the ways grief, anger, betrayal, and the darkest parts of ourselves can alter not only the shape of our own lives, but the lives of everyone around us.
It is a story about family, motherhood, daughters, sisterhood, friendship, revenge, generational trauma, and the strain of relationships shaped by harm that was never fully spoken aloud. There is a lot here about inherited pain and what people do with it: whether they carry it, repeat it, weaponize it, or find some way to stop it from moving forward.
I enjoyed how the two timelines slowly came together, the twists and shifts in perspective, and the way the book kept deepening my understanding of its characters and their connections to one another. This part is very well done.
The historical timeline is heavy and is well done. The author is so attentive to the losses produced by war and occupation—the ways terror, displacement, grief, and impossible choices continue to shape people long after the violence itself has ended. I think that is something historical fiction can do especially well: war is never simply background. Its horror lives in the intimate, lasting damage it causes and leaves behind, and here that damage becomes inseparable from the story’s grief.
I was excited to realize that the book is set in Kowloon Walled City, because I had learned a little about it a few years ago and have been fascinated by it ever since. The real Kowloon Walled City was this impossibly dense community in Hong Kong: homes, shops, stairwells, workshops, alleys, and passageways all built into a maze of high-rises. Knowing even a little about its history added so much to the book for me. I genuinely think this is one where looking up photographs and reading about Kowloon while you read would deepen the experience, because the setting is so vivid and so integral to Mercy’s world.
My main struggle came toward the end, though I felt hints of it throughout. The Guanyin sections and much of the historical material can be so lyrical, grounded, and emotionally serious, but there were also moments of dialogue and humor that felt much more contemporary, exaggerated, or a little YA-adjacent. At times, that language felt out of place within the historical setting and pulled me out of a world the book had otherwise built so vividly.
I felt that most strongly in the ending. The book’s ideas about forgiveness, vengeance, and understanding are compelling, but eventually I could feel the author steering the characters toward its moral conclusion. I wanted the book to trust its characters (and the reader) a little more, rather than explaining so directly what we were meant to take from their choices. In the same vein, certain character perspectives felt repeated after their meaning was already clear, which, for me, made the book feel a little more instructive than I prefer my fiction to be.
Still, I found this to be a compelling and emotionally ambitious story. I would recommend it to readers who enjoy layered historical horror or fantasy, ghost stories rooted in grief and injustice, complicated women, nonlinear narratives, and books interested in the damage families carry across generations.
I would be a little more cautious recommending it to readers who tend to dislike books that become more didactic or explicit about their moral framework.
By the end, this one is very clear about what it wants to say about forgiveness, vengeance, and understanding, and that may really work for some readers, even if I personally wanted a little more room for the characters and the reader to arrive there on their own.
A beautiful, tragic story.
Also: Bao 4vr 🤍
4ish stars from me. ✨️
This is such an interesting, layered book. I really enjoyed it. It has lovely prose, an intricate story, and a great deal to say about grief: it deeply explores the ways grief, anger, betrayal, and the darkest parts of ourselves can alter not only the shape of our own lives, but the lives of everyone around us.
It is a story about family, motherhood, daughters, sisterhood, friendship, revenge, generational trauma, and the strain of relationships shaped by harm that was never fully spoken aloud. There is a lot here about inherited pain and what people do with it: whether they carry it, repeat it, weaponize it, or find some way to stop it from moving forward.
I enjoyed how the two timelines slowly came together, the twists and shifts in perspective, and the way the book kept deepening my understanding of its characters and their connections to one another. This part is very well done.
The historical timeline is heavy and is well done. The author is so attentive to the losses produced by war and occupation—the ways terror, displacement, grief, and impossible choices continue to shape people long after the violence itself has ended. I think that is something historical fiction can do especially well: war is never simply background. Its horror lives in the intimate, lasting damage it causes and leaves behind, and here that damage becomes inseparable from the story’s grief.
I was excited to realize that the book is set in Kowloon Walled City, because I had learned a little about it a few years ago and have been fascinated by it ever since. The real Kowloon Walled City was this impossibly dense community in Hong Kong: homes, shops, stairwells, workshops, alleys, and passageways all built into a maze of high-rises. Knowing even a little about its history added so much to the book for me. I genuinely think this is one where looking up photographs and reading about Kowloon while you read would deepen the experience, because the setting is so vivid and so integral to Mercy’s world.
My main struggle came toward the end, though I felt hints of it throughout. The Guanyin sections and much of the historical material can be so lyrical, grounded, and emotionally serious, but there were also moments of dialogue and humor that felt much more contemporary, exaggerated, or a little YA-adjacent. At times, that language felt out of place within the historical setting and pulled me out of a world the book had otherwise built so vividly.
I felt that most strongly in the ending. The book’s ideas about forgiveness, vengeance, and understanding are compelling, but eventually I could feel the author steering the characters toward its moral conclusion. I wanted the book to trust its characters (and the reader) a little more, rather than explaining so directly what we were meant to take from their choices. In the same vein, certain character perspectives felt repeated after their meaning was already clear, which, for me, made the book feel a little more instructive than I prefer my fiction to be.
Still, I found this to be a compelling and emotionally ambitious story. I would recommend it to readers who enjoy layered historical horror or fantasy, ghost stories rooted in grief and injustice, complicated women, nonlinear narratives, and books interested in the damage families carry across generations.
I would be a little more cautious recommending it to readers who tend to dislike books that become more didactic or explicit about their moral framework.
By the end, this one is very clear about what it wants to say about forgiveness, vengeance, and understanding, and that may really work for some readers, even if I personally wanted a little more room for the characters and the reader to arrive there on their own.
A beautiful, tragic story.
Also: Bao 4vr 🤍
4ish stars from me. ✨️
June 7, 2026
I ordinarily would not have gravitated to this, were I not intrigued by the author's Publishing Rodeo podcast and driven to read The Book Eaters (and her co-host's Rise of the Mages) and not exactly being wowed, and I wanted to read this to see if I got more out of it. I did, but not vastly more.
My impression of Dean's books to date is that the ideas are just a bit better than the execution. She works hard on her books, which is good, but it feels different that something similar from a writer whose books flow out of them more naturally. My understanding from the author's previous statements and this book's back matter is that the idea for this book only came about after multiple proposals and discussions with the original editor, and it took five years (while working on other things also) of extensive rewriting and extensive revisions and reworking of the story to get it to this final form. Maybe it was something like committing to the themes she wanted to express and forcing out a story to encapsulate them, versus the alternative of writing out the story and only then seeing what themes emerge. Dean's two published books to date certainly nail the high concept, and those have driven the marketing; for me the writing hasn't yet risen to the same level.
It is an interesting book, and many will rightfully enjoy it. It's a cross-genre literary historical urban fantasy set in Hong Kong with timelines in World War II and 1975, in a world where ghosts are real and common and potentially dangerous. The thing that sucked me in on page 1 was the main character's ghost cat companion. After a while though, I started wondering about that ghost cat; was it just thrown in because it's cool? This concern was soothed when the ghost cat's history was addressed ... but by the end it also wasn't, and it was mostly just a cool addition to the story. That's okay; cool ghost cat.
Part I was mostly an intriguing urban fantasy focused on Kowloon, the walled city within Hong Kong, where ghosts are concentrated and Mercy Chan is a respected Ghost Talker working with the dominant Triad maintaining order in the neglected region. There were parts where the plot felt forced, and I noticed several not great similes, some forced exposition and unnatural dialogue, but it was overall enjoyable.
Part II is the core of the book, haunting and lyrical and emotional. Entrancing and wonderful and unique.
Parts III and IV bring the story back to the start and continues onward to the grand finale. It's very tightly plotted, needfully so for a story with complex character relationships and timeline that could have left the reader lost. And now a word about plotting: it was well done, but I also dislike when I feel the author's hand. Maybe this is some of the heavy re-working at play; it took a lot of effort to make the story work as smoothly as it did, and the effort shows.
Another strange complaint about plot: when a book makes it clear that A leads to D, which we know because we've already experienced D, must we really sit through A, B, and C being fully written out? At that point it reads like, well, the plot has these steps in it, so each step now has to be written. It feels very writerly, like the writer has to write out of necessity, and they do a good job writing all that out, but could we not have skipped it? There are surely plenty of narrative techniques and writer tricks to skip over things without leaving gaping holes, because the reader understands what fills the hole so you don't have to do that manual labour to fill in the hole while the reader just watches you shovel, like they're the extra construction workers just standing around watching the main guy do the thing. Readers can be trusted! That's the core of my complaint. It's not just this book, I've encountered this in plenty of other places in recent memory. I don't know what forces are acting on writers to feel like they have to plainly lay out every piece in a string of events when other options are possible. I suppose some readers need this. Yes, I'm an elitist.
The unnatural dialogue of Part I returned throughout the final parts of the book. Sometimes it was simply that characters overexplained things, adding details to sentences to make sure the reader understood the context and motivation of a statement when those details were unnecessary. It's another example of seemingly not trusting the reader to understand events and characters. By the end, though, it was mostly an issue of cheese and overexplaining the book's themes. The final confrontation and resolution between the two major characters was just so cheesy. And the book's themes are often expressed verbatim. Look at the book's cover accolades and other write ups; you'll see that it has themes like the intergenerational impact of war and personal trauma, and what it takes to move past grief and loss. The book's themes are strongly expressed, sometimes skillfully, but other times the book just comes out and states the themes plainly. Characters will state things along the lines of, "war and personal trauma have impacts across generations," and, "I don't know what it takes to move past this grief and loss." Just in case the reader missed it, maybe?
Maybe it's not that the author doesn't instinctively trust the reader; maybe it's that they don't yet fully trust themselves.
One final whinge: the author or publisher must have heard my complaint about The Book Eaters that labelled half the chapters as "Present Day" but it turned out that was actually very specifically the year 2002, in a book published 20 years later. Here, the exact date is specified for the later events: August 20, 1975 and beyond. My whinge is that in part IV it was deemed necessary to start further specifying how many days it was before or after the date that Part I left off: August 22, 1975. So when the story returned to events on August 20, it said, "2 days earlier", and for August 26 it said, "4 days later". Like ... yes that is how dates and basic numbers work? I'm confident most readers could figure out that August 26 is four days after August 22. They are even capable of recalling the previous date specified in the book, and if they couldn't they could flip back, it's not hard to find in the least, but somebody assumed you were incompetent. Thank you, whomever.
So there you go. A perfectly good book that will please many readers and contributes new things to literary fiction and fantasy.
My impression of Dean's books to date is that the ideas are just a bit better than the execution. She works hard on her books, which is good, but it feels different that something similar from a writer whose books flow out of them more naturally. My understanding from the author's previous statements and this book's back matter is that the idea for this book only came about after multiple proposals and discussions with the original editor, and it took five years (while working on other things also) of extensive rewriting and extensive revisions and reworking of the story to get it to this final form. Maybe it was something like committing to the themes she wanted to express and forcing out a story to encapsulate them, versus the alternative of writing out the story and only then seeing what themes emerge. Dean's two published books to date certainly nail the high concept, and those have driven the marketing; for me the writing hasn't yet risen to the same level.
It is an interesting book, and many will rightfully enjoy it. It's a cross-genre literary historical urban fantasy set in Hong Kong with timelines in World War II and 1975, in a world where ghosts are real and common and potentially dangerous. The thing that sucked me in on page 1 was the main character's ghost cat companion. After a while though, I started wondering about that ghost cat; was it just thrown in because it's cool? This concern was soothed when the ghost cat's history was addressed ... but by the end it also wasn't, and it was mostly just a cool addition to the story. That's okay; cool ghost cat.
Part I was mostly an intriguing urban fantasy focused on Kowloon, the walled city within Hong Kong, where ghosts are concentrated and Mercy Chan is a respected Ghost Talker working with the dominant Triad maintaining order in the neglected region. There were parts where the plot felt forced, and I noticed several not great similes, some forced exposition and unnatural dialogue, but it was overall enjoyable.
Part II is the core of the book, haunting and lyrical and emotional. Entrancing and wonderful and unique.
Parts III and IV bring the story back to the start and continues onward to the grand finale. It's very tightly plotted, needfully so for a story with complex character relationships and timeline that could have left the reader lost. And now a word about plotting: it was well done, but I also dislike when I feel the author's hand. Maybe this is some of the heavy re-working at play; it took a lot of effort to make the story work as smoothly as it did, and the effort shows.
Another strange complaint about plot: when a book makes it clear that A leads to D, which we know because we've already experienced D, must we really sit through A, B, and C being fully written out? At that point it reads like, well, the plot has these steps in it, so each step now has to be written. It feels very writerly, like the writer has to write out of necessity, and they do a good job writing all that out, but could we not have skipped it? There are surely plenty of narrative techniques and writer tricks to skip over things without leaving gaping holes, because the reader understands what fills the hole so you don't have to do that manual labour to fill in the hole while the reader just watches you shovel, like they're the extra construction workers just standing around watching the main guy do the thing. Readers can be trusted! That's the core of my complaint. It's not just this book, I've encountered this in plenty of other places in recent memory. I don't know what forces are acting on writers to feel like they have to plainly lay out every piece in a string of events when other options are possible. I suppose some readers need this. Yes, I'm an elitist.
The unnatural dialogue of Part I returned throughout the final parts of the book. Sometimes it was simply that characters overexplained things, adding details to sentences to make sure the reader understood the context and motivation of a statement when those details were unnecessary. It's another example of seemingly not trusting the reader to understand events and characters. By the end, though, it was mostly an issue of cheese and overexplaining the book's themes. The final confrontation and resolution between the two major characters was just so cheesy. And the book's themes are often expressed verbatim. Look at the book's cover accolades and other write ups; you'll see that it has themes like the intergenerational impact of war and personal trauma, and what it takes to move past grief and loss. The book's themes are strongly expressed, sometimes skillfully, but other times the book just comes out and states the themes plainly. Characters will state things along the lines of, "war and personal trauma have impacts across generations," and, "I don't know what it takes to move past this grief and loss." Just in case the reader missed it, maybe?
Maybe it's not that the author doesn't instinctively trust the reader; maybe it's that they don't yet fully trust themselves.
One final whinge: the author or publisher must have heard my complaint about The Book Eaters that labelled half the chapters as "Present Day" but it turned out that was actually very specifically the year 2002, in a book published 20 years later. Here, the exact date is specified for the later events: August 20, 1975 and beyond. My whinge is that in part IV it was deemed necessary to start further specifying how many days it was before or after the date that Part I left off: August 22, 1975. So when the story returned to events on August 20, it said, "2 days earlier", and for August 26 it said, "4 days later". Like ... yes that is how dates and basic numbers work? I'm confident most readers could figure out that August 26 is four days after August 22. They are even capable of recalling the previous date specified in the book, and if they couldn't they could flip back, it's not hard to find in the least, but somebody assumed you were incompetent. Thank you, whomever.
So there you go. A perfectly good book that will please many readers and contributes new things to literary fiction and fantasy.
Did Not Finish
April 21, 2026Sincere thank you to Sunyi Dean for this ARC in exchange for my honest opinions!
DNF @ 50%
I’m very disappointed, this having been one of my highly anticipated reads this year. Normally I have no qualms about giving a rating for a DNF, but this time I’m not going to do so just because I think this might equally be a me problem.
I think this book is trying to tell too many stories. Not in an ambitious, sprawling sort of way. The book is only 320 pages but there is just such a hodge podge of plot crammed in, it’s hard to really connect with any one thing in particular. The first third of the book focuses entirely on Mercy Chan and her ghost talking ability, her life in Kowloon Walled City nestled into Hong Kong. A petition is being put forth for Kowloon, the only home she’s ever known, to be demolished. Nearly as soon as this story is established, there’s an abrupt shift to the past, to the childhood that Mercy Chan no longer has any memory of. Once the story shifts, the narrator and the POV change which is confusing and odd. Suddenly the story is being told from first person POV, something that was not done in the beginning of the book, and the narrator is now omniscient.
I have read other books where very far into the story an entirely secondary story takes place with a different POV character. The first that springs to mind is The Last Contract of Isako. It can be done, but it has to be done carefully. When your reader develops a connection with the main character and then the author pulls the rug and switches to a new main character, it can easily lose the reader. That’s what happened to me with this story. Once the perspective was changed away from Mercy Chan, and a new narrator was added and a first person POV, I could not connect again. After that I found myself struggling to even pick up the book.
In addition to this soup of plot points, writing techniques and timelines, I also found the dialogue extremely clunky. Every character seemed to speak exactly the same way, making it difficult to even discern who was speaking, or find real personality in the characters.
Overall this one wasn’t for me, but I still appreciate being given a chance to early read and review by this author and give them all my best wishes for future books!
DNF @ 50%
I’m very disappointed, this having been one of my highly anticipated reads this year. Normally I have no qualms about giving a rating for a DNF, but this time I’m not going to do so just because I think this might equally be a me problem.
I think this book is trying to tell too many stories. Not in an ambitious, sprawling sort of way. The book is only 320 pages but there is just such a hodge podge of plot crammed in, it’s hard to really connect with any one thing in particular. The first third of the book focuses entirely on Mercy Chan and her ghost talking ability, her life in Kowloon Walled City nestled into Hong Kong. A petition is being put forth for Kowloon, the only home she’s ever known, to be demolished. Nearly as soon as this story is established, there’s an abrupt shift to the past, to the childhood that Mercy Chan no longer has any memory of. Once the story shifts, the narrator and the POV change which is confusing and odd. Suddenly the story is being told from first person POV, something that was not done in the beginning of the book, and the narrator is now omniscient.
I have read other books where very far into the story an entirely secondary story takes place with a different POV character. The first that springs to mind is The Last Contract of Isako. It can be done, but it has to be done carefully. When your reader develops a connection with the main character and then the author pulls the rug and switches to a new main character, it can easily lose the reader. That’s what happened to me with this story. Once the perspective was changed away from Mercy Chan, and a new narrator was added and a first person POV, I could not connect again. After that I found myself struggling to even pick up the book.
In addition to this soup of plot points, writing techniques and timelines, I also found the dialogue extremely clunky. Every character seemed to speak exactly the same way, making it difficult to even discern who was speaking, or find real personality in the characters.
Overall this one wasn’t for me, but I still appreciate being given a chance to early read and review by this author and give them all my best wishes for future books!
May 22, 2026
I am so in love with this novel, I think I might just listen to it twice. It’s literally that good..! When that big twist came along, my mind was so blown, I had to put down this novel and think about everything that had happened before, for a good, long while. My flabbers were truly gasted, in all the best ways.
I can’t wait to see what Sunyi Dean writes next. I’m quite sure I will fall in love with those characters and that world as well. Man, what a novel..!
The brilliant Natalie Naudus is the narrator for the audiobook version of this novel. And she is phenomenal..! As usual. Macmillan Audio, please employ her as a narrator many more times! And kudos to everyone involved in the making of this novel. It’s truly a gem.
This is the author Sunyi Dean’s ‘review’ of this novel. A lot of the things posted on here were mentioned at the end of the novel, which was helpful. But just in case you missed it or skipped it for whatever reason, here is the link. Please read it:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
God, do I love novels about angry women….. 4.5 stars, and highly recommended.
I can’t wait to see what Sunyi Dean writes next. I’m quite sure I will fall in love with those characters and that world as well. Man, what a novel..!
The brilliant Natalie Naudus is the narrator for the audiobook version of this novel. And she is phenomenal..! As usual. Macmillan Audio, please employ her as a narrator many more times! And kudos to everyone involved in the making of this novel. It’s truly a gem.
This is the author Sunyi Dean’s ‘review’ of this novel. A lot of the things posted on here were mentioned at the end of the novel, which was helpful. But just in case you missed it or skipped it for whatever reason, here is the link. Please read it:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
God, do I love novels about angry women….. 4.5 stars, and highly recommended.
June 12, 2026
A truly beautifully written story that hit all my expectations and beyond.
May 22, 2026
Haunting, heartbreaking, and monstrously unforgettable, The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean is a dark historical fantasy that transports the reader back in time to the real and supernatural horrors of a WWII ravaged Hong Kong. Mercy Chan’s past is unknown, but her future is even more murky as a “ghost talker” living and working within the Triad ranks inside the Kowloon Walled City, which just happens to be overrun with spirits, some of which have been taking and drowning victims in the cold, dark waterways. At least she’s got job security, right? Wrong. Mercy must figure out why the dead are hunting the living and put a stop to it before she also ends up in a watery grave. This is a story of monsters and men at play within the slums of war devastated Hong Kong, and Mercy is doing her best to survive without her memories, but her past will catch up with her whether she remembers it or not, and her ghosts, both figurative and literal, just might end up drowning her alongside the denizens of her city.
The Girl with a Thousand Faces is a wrathful typhoon of a story, pulling the reader into tempestuous waters blackened with shocking twists, ghost hunting, enthralling mystery, and exhilarating adventure back in time! Sunyi Dean deftly navigates complex grief, explores deeply engrained generational trauma & dares to lift the thin veil of separation between monstrosity and humanity, redefining what it means to be monstrous in a monstrous world. The author obviously poured a tremendous amount of careful research into this tale of destruction and deliverance; it’s dripping in Chinese folklore and salted all the way through with tasty historical pearls, and I learned so much about another side to WWII history. Her writing is, as always, powerfully eloquent and evocative. I really resonated with the female rage aspect of the book, so I relished going on a journey from self-detonation to self-acceptance and rebirth. It. Was. Awesome. I very much recommend losing yourself in a storm of dark history, vibrant culture, and fantastic legends. Happy ghost hunting!
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the ARC and the opportunity to share what I think! All opinions are my own. Publication date was May 5th!
The Girl with a Thousand Faces is a wrathful typhoon of a story, pulling the reader into tempestuous waters blackened with shocking twists, ghost hunting, enthralling mystery, and exhilarating adventure back in time! Sunyi Dean deftly navigates complex grief, explores deeply engrained generational trauma & dares to lift the thin veil of separation between monstrosity and humanity, redefining what it means to be monstrous in a monstrous world. The author obviously poured a tremendous amount of careful research into this tale of destruction and deliverance; it’s dripping in Chinese folklore and salted all the way through with tasty historical pearls, and I learned so much about another side to WWII history. Her writing is, as always, powerfully eloquent and evocative. I really resonated with the female rage aspect of the book, so I relished going on a journey from self-detonation to self-acceptance and rebirth. It. Was. Awesome. I very much recommend losing yourself in a storm of dark history, vibrant culture, and fantastic legends. Happy ghost hunting!
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Tor Publishing for the ARC and the opportunity to share what I think! All opinions are my own. Publication date was May 5th!
June 7, 2026
I enjoyed this book very much! I liked the duel timelines where we get to visit the past during Japan's occupation of Hong Kong during WWII and then move forward to the mid 1970s. Sunyi Dean masterfully weaves Chinese myths and legends with historical details. The book really took off for me when we began to learn Mercy Chen's real story and found out who the water ghost really was. From that point on I was completely immersed in the story. I loved the ending—so satisfying! I highly recommend!
May 11, 2026
Mercy Chan is a middle-aged, flip-flop-wearing ghost talker living in 1975 Hong Kong. Employed by the Cobra Lily triad and accompanied everywhere by Bao, a ghost cat who communicates exclusively through red-eyed contempt, Mercy navigates the sweating, ghost-saturated vertical warren of Kowloon Walled City, where the dead outnumber the living.
The novel also runs a parallel track. Back in 1941, a twenty-year-old called Sung Siu Yin and her cold, grief-carved mother flee the Japanese invasion to shelter on Shek Ham Chau, a pristine ghost island improbably maintained by its industrious spectral residents. Siu Yin explores, finds a monstrous green-skinned jiaoren lurking just offshore, and, because her judgment regarding sea monsters is optimistic, strikes up a friendship she will come to regret across several bodies.
The jiaoren turns out to be Chen Mei Chi, a water ghost of legendary persistence. Dead since childhood, it haunts her island for decades, and operating on the well-established ghost principle that love and drowning are interchangeable.
When Siu Yin's kindness inevitably cracks the ghost's long loneliness, and her eventual rejection cracks it the other way, Mei Chi performs a grand gestures of wounded affection that is fairly hard to forgive. A confusing genealogy of water ghosts is awakened and exposed.
Meanwhile, Mei Chi, walking around in living skin and rattled by guilt she did not expect to feel, gets rescued by a Japanese military patrol and swept into Hong Kong's wartime resistance, where she becomes, through years of body-swapping necessity, the woman the 1975 timeline calls the Girl with a Thousand Faces.
The two timelines are really one very long grudge, and by 1975 that grudge has matured into elaborate supernatural scheming. I was lost in the accounts of wartime betrayal, stolen bodies, colonial neglect, and family guilt. Whether any of it can be settled without drowning everyone in the vicinity is the question Sunyi Dean is trying to sustain across four parts and forty chapters, with a ghost cat, a goddess, and the Hong Kong harbor as witnesses. I was gasping for air on the first page already.
The Girl with a Thousand Faces is a ghost story about inheritance. It is about what the dead pass to the living, what the living owe the dead, and what happens when the two groups stop agreeing. Women who are cheated of voice, agency, and survival do not dissolve politely into the afterlife. They come back, furious and creative, wearing other people's faces if they must. Give women their due or expect trouble. This thesis is old enough to be engraved on a temple wall, and remains as current as this morning's newspaper. Not very original, though, and thus requires an original way to present it. For me it was too messy, too confusing, too fantastical, too much, too weak, too childish.
The colonial Hong Kong setting does genuine work, grounding supernatural grievance in documented historical betrayal. The weaknesses are structural. The second-person chapters tip from immersive into instructional. The pacing across four parts suggests a book that grew in the writing and was only partially persuaded to stop. The connections are loose and the coherence is absent.
Still, a water ghost who steals faces to demand accountability from a city that preferred to forget her is a fine metaphor for recorded history, and Dean deploys it with enough conviction that the book is to be commended for its ambition, even when the ambition outweighs the unfocused execution. This book is a head full of bees. Couldn't keep up, Couldn't stay interested. It's a shame because the era and events are truly fascinating. The execution did nothing for me.
I may be wrong, but this has to be some of the weakest writing I've yet to encounter from a serious publisher:
“...Chungpo swore under his breath.
“Fuck a crab,” Mercy said, and sighed. “Grandmother, you are dead. I don’t know if the sickness killed you or starvation did, but either way, the only ‘help’ your grandson gave was to hurry you along and make sure you could not escape death. He waited till you were bedbound, stole your money and your jewelry, and locked you in here to die.” She looked at Chungpo. “Am I right?”
The man glared. Gold bracelets clacked on his wrists as his fists curled.
“No!” The ghost began to cry with black tears, smoke trickling from her nostrils. “No, he would never!” Long cooking chopsticks dropped from fragile hands and dispersed into ethereal mist. Her body flickered like a television with a bad signal.
Rat Tattoo grabbed Mercy’s shoulder with some force. “If you are accusing us of—”
Bao hissed, fur standing on end. He was only a small ghost, but the sudden noise was enough to make the man release his grip in shock…”
The novel also runs a parallel track. Back in 1941, a twenty-year-old called Sung Siu Yin and her cold, grief-carved mother flee the Japanese invasion to shelter on Shek Ham Chau, a pristine ghost island improbably maintained by its industrious spectral residents. Siu Yin explores, finds a monstrous green-skinned jiaoren lurking just offshore, and, because her judgment regarding sea monsters is optimistic, strikes up a friendship she will come to regret across several bodies.
The jiaoren turns out to be Chen Mei Chi, a water ghost of legendary persistence. Dead since childhood, it haunts her island for decades, and operating on the well-established ghost principle that love and drowning are interchangeable.
When Siu Yin's kindness inevitably cracks the ghost's long loneliness, and her eventual rejection cracks it the other way, Mei Chi performs a grand gestures of wounded affection that is fairly hard to forgive. A confusing genealogy of water ghosts is awakened and exposed.
Meanwhile, Mei Chi, walking around in living skin and rattled by guilt she did not expect to feel, gets rescued by a Japanese military patrol and swept into Hong Kong's wartime resistance, where she becomes, through years of body-swapping necessity, the woman the 1975 timeline calls the Girl with a Thousand Faces.
The two timelines are really one very long grudge, and by 1975 that grudge has matured into elaborate supernatural scheming. I was lost in the accounts of wartime betrayal, stolen bodies, colonial neglect, and family guilt. Whether any of it can be settled without drowning everyone in the vicinity is the question Sunyi Dean is trying to sustain across four parts and forty chapters, with a ghost cat, a goddess, and the Hong Kong harbor as witnesses. I was gasping for air on the first page already.
The Girl with a Thousand Faces is a ghost story about inheritance. It is about what the dead pass to the living, what the living owe the dead, and what happens when the two groups stop agreeing. Women who are cheated of voice, agency, and survival do not dissolve politely into the afterlife. They come back, furious and creative, wearing other people's faces if they must. Give women their due or expect trouble. This thesis is old enough to be engraved on a temple wall, and remains as current as this morning's newspaper. Not very original, though, and thus requires an original way to present it. For me it was too messy, too confusing, too fantastical, too much, too weak, too childish.
The colonial Hong Kong setting does genuine work, grounding supernatural grievance in documented historical betrayal. The weaknesses are structural. The second-person chapters tip from immersive into instructional. The pacing across four parts suggests a book that grew in the writing and was only partially persuaded to stop. The connections are loose and the coherence is absent.
Still, a water ghost who steals faces to demand accountability from a city that preferred to forget her is a fine metaphor for recorded history, and Dean deploys it with enough conviction that the book is to be commended for its ambition, even when the ambition outweighs the unfocused execution. This book is a head full of bees. Couldn't keep up, Couldn't stay interested. It's a shame because the era and events are truly fascinating. The execution did nothing for me.
I may be wrong, but this has to be some of the weakest writing I've yet to encounter from a serious publisher:
“...Chungpo swore under his breath.
“Fuck a crab,” Mercy said, and sighed. “Grandmother, you are dead. I don’t know if the sickness killed you or starvation did, but either way, the only ‘help’ your grandson gave was to hurry you along and make sure you could not escape death. He waited till you were bedbound, stole your money and your jewelry, and locked you in here to die.” She looked at Chungpo. “Am I right?”
The man glared. Gold bracelets clacked on his wrists as his fists curled.
“No!” The ghost began to cry with black tears, smoke trickling from her nostrils. “No, he would never!” Long cooking chopsticks dropped from fragile hands and dispersed into ethereal mist. Her body flickered like a television with a bad signal.
Rat Tattoo grabbed Mercy’s shoulder with some force. “If you are accusing us of—”
Bao hissed, fur standing on end. He was only a small ghost, but the sudden noise was enough to make the man release his grip in shock…”
April 28, 2026
God, I love stories about angry women. Two wronged children become two powerful, vengeful adults (?) and, honestly, a girl can still dream.
It took me a minute to settle into this one, but once I did, I was all in. The eerie urban-gothic atmosphere was everything, and while it’s classified as horror, there was really only one scene that truly spooked me (mostly because I’m terrified of the ocean). The story feels folksy, mythical, deliberate, and deeply intelligent. Definitely one of those novels where you can feel how much heart the author poured into every page.
Its themes are dark, real, and resonant: generational trauma, the lingering consequences of war, and the messy, painful complexities of family. Both main characters are refreshingly flawed and compelling in their own ways. Mercy is a middle-aged ghost-talker who is just fucking over it lol.The other protagonist is an unapologetically pissed-off and problematic badass.
The narrative is ambitious, and while I admire what it’s reaching for, I do think it could have benefited from a bit more tightening. Converging timelines are tricky, and parts, particularly in part three, felt somewhat clunky. Some of the stylistic choices, especially the POV shifts and heavy use of subject ellipses, occasionally pulled me out of the story. They created an interesting reading experience, but a heavier hand in editing might have made them more effective.
Overall, this is a thoughtful, inventive, and memorable story. I think this will find a devoted audience, especially among readers who love gothic fantasy with sharp teeth and something meaningful to say.
Thanks to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
It took me a minute to settle into this one, but once I did, I was all in. The eerie urban-gothic atmosphere was everything, and while it’s classified as horror, there was really only one scene that truly spooked me (mostly because I’m terrified of the ocean). The story feels folksy, mythical, deliberate, and deeply intelligent. Definitely one of those novels where you can feel how much heart the author poured into every page.
Its themes are dark, real, and resonant: generational trauma, the lingering consequences of war, and the messy, painful complexities of family. Both main characters are refreshingly flawed and compelling in their own ways. Mercy is a middle-aged ghost-talker who is just fucking over it lol.The other protagonist is an unapologetically pissed-off and problematic badass.
The narrative is ambitious, and while I admire what it’s reaching for, I do think it could have benefited from a bit more tightening. Converging timelines are tricky, and parts, particularly in part three, felt somewhat clunky. Some of the stylistic choices, especially the POV shifts and heavy use of subject ellipses, occasionally pulled me out of the story. They created an interesting reading experience, but a heavier hand in editing might have made them more effective.
Overall, this is a thoughtful, inventive, and memorable story. I think this will find a devoted audience, especially among readers who love gothic fantasy with sharp teeth and something meaningful to say.
Thanks to Tor Publishing Group and NetGalley for providing an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
June 1, 2026
I just want to start this off by saying I am so tired of being disappointed by some of my most anticipated reads. Especially ones that everyone else seems to be enjoying. I wanted to enjoy this so badly. I want to be on the hype train. With that being said, this is a very, very, very long rant, with very little good to say about this book. Buckle in.
Also, if you are Sunyi Dean or any of her friends, don't read this. Reviews are readers. (Yes, I did see that she's apparently being shitty about negative reviews, so that is adding to some of my rage, honestly.)
There is a very interesting premise here but this was a mess. I'm not even sure where to begin with how much of a mess this was. This felt like three different books. Part one and part two are so completely different from each other that I truly almost forgot they were the same book. I loathed part one. It was so messy and all over the place. I went into this expecting a gothic horror and then instead got a very weird urban fantasy that was extremely chaotic, doing ten million things at once that I could not keep track of. I should have taken notes because so much weird shit happened that I have truly lost track of all of it. I actually considered DNFing but I saw people say that part two was different, so I gave it a shot. While I did like part two a bit better, it unfortunately meant that I had to see the rest of the book out and I just wish I had DNFed.
Mercy was also a very weird protagonist to follow because we are told she is in her fifties but she acts like she's a teenager. I truly did not believe she was supposed to be middle-aged. Then again, all the characters are extremely flat. Our two main characters basically wildly flip-flopped personalities over the course of the story, to the point where they felt like completely different people throughout.
Another thing; this is not gothic. This is a fantasy story with ghosts. If just the inclusion of ghosts made something gothic than Danny Phantom would be gothic. This is an urban fantasy that picked ghosts as its focus, as opposed to vampires or werewolves. We even have a ghost special forces in World War II, that's how normalized ghosts are here. There's apparently parts of the government meant to deal with ghosts specifically. This is not really thought out at all, and is just there. Some of the ghosts feel like more classic ghosts; lost souls who seem to repeat the ends of their lives. That's normal, makes sense. But the issue becomes the ghosts this story focuses on, who are more like super-heroes, which is really annoying.
I'm trying to figure out what I can talk about without going into too many spoilers. Probably the writing style. It's so awkward and clunky. The dialogue is atrocious at times. There are times where Dean has people say things that no real person would ever say, because if they spoke like a normal human being, it would give away the twist. Which is how we end up with a character going "Are you... her?" instead of just asking "Are you [insert spoiler name here]?" because again, can't have a character spoil the whole twist! I'll get to the twist in a moment.
The other thing about the writing that drove me insane comes in part two, when we switch to second person. I do not hate second person. I think, when utilized well, it can be extremely interesting. See Harrow the Ninth one of my favorite books of all time. I think the use of second-person here actually was one of the major issues of the book, but that gets into spoiler territory. The non-spoiler complaint I have is the way Dean uses it. Sometimes she will write things out like "You did this" as one normally would. Otherwise, she dropped the "you" entirely. So instead we get sentences like; "Dip and dive through glassy water..." "Step free of your shirt and trousers..." or my most hated "Nod slowly." That was the entire sentence. "Nod slowly." (Page 160, if you're wondering). "Nod slowly." IS NOT A FULL SENTENCE. This was done so many times and just made me increasingly angry each time. As if Dean was afraid to properly use second person, because we never saw this in the other parts that weren't in second person.
That being said, Dean also doesn't know how to use words properly. She doesn't seem to know that the word "overwhelm" is a verb, and not a noun. Twice was the word used as a noun. "...brain thrumming with awe and overwhelm" (pg 152) and "the sheer overwhelm of existing" (pg 229). Once again, overwhelm is a verb. This is not how you use overwhelm in a sentence. At another point we also get the statement that says "...everything single moment..." What? Everything in a single moment? Everything is a single moment? Something else? "Everything single moment" does not make sense. There's another time where it says "...once she and they are both". Just say they! Just say they!!! She and they doesn't make sense! That's now how those words work! That's not how any of these words work!
Oh, here's another non-spoiler; the worst "coming out" for a trans person I think I've seen in a long time. Mercy goes to see an old friend, opens the door, and finds a woman there instead. We are introduced to Erika, who Mercy knew before she transitioned. Mercy is a bit surprised and asks why Erika didn't tell her. Erika basically goes "you don't tell me every change you've had in your life. Why should I tell you about every change in my life?" BECAUSE IT'S A BIG ONE?! I'm sorry, was Erika signing all these letters they wrote to each other with her dead-name? We couldn't even get a "I wanted to tell you in person" or something? This was so laughably bad. Tell me you've never had a trans person come out to you without telling me, sincerely, an actual trans person.
This book also does a lot of telling and not showing. We are told that a character, was a restless child. Never see this. We are also told that she was "a natural chatter box, a chronic over-sharer". Since when!? We never see this! She comes off as kind of shy and awkward actually! Later on we get another that said "in love with this place more than anything or anywhere else in [her] life". REALLY?! I would have loved to have seen that! Because from what I read, she hated it! You can't just tell us these things and not give us any textual evidence to back that up! We actually got the opposite!
The twist, in theory is really interesting, but in execution is not good. But alright, from here on out it's all spoilers.
You know what? I probably could complain more. But I have been typing for over and hour and a half at this point. I'm done. I've had enough. All I've done is make myself increasingly angry about this book to the point where I can't even be coherent about how mad I am. The extremely short version is there's a really, really interesting premise here but the writing and execution was rage inducing for me. Somehow, I managed to finish this book. Somehow. Don't ask me how. I shouldn't have. I should have DNFed this, but I refuse to learn. This book is the reason I'm going to become a vengeful ghost.
Also, if you are Sunyi Dean or any of her friends, don't read this. Reviews are readers. (Yes, I did see that she's apparently being shitty about negative reviews, so that is adding to some of my rage, honestly.)
There is a very interesting premise here but this was a mess. I'm not even sure where to begin with how much of a mess this was. This felt like three different books. Part one and part two are so completely different from each other that I truly almost forgot they were the same book. I loathed part one. It was so messy and all over the place. I went into this expecting a gothic horror and then instead got a very weird urban fantasy that was extremely chaotic, doing ten million things at once that I could not keep track of. I should have taken notes because so much weird shit happened that I have truly lost track of all of it. I actually considered DNFing but I saw people say that part two was different, so I gave it a shot. While I did like part two a bit better, it unfortunately meant that I had to see the rest of the book out and I just wish I had DNFed.
Mercy was also a very weird protagonist to follow because we are told she is in her fifties but she acts like she's a teenager. I truly did not believe she was supposed to be middle-aged. Then again, all the characters are extremely flat. Our two main characters basically wildly flip-flopped personalities over the course of the story, to the point where they felt like completely different people throughout.
Another thing; this is not gothic. This is a fantasy story with ghosts. If just the inclusion of ghosts made something gothic than Danny Phantom would be gothic. This is an urban fantasy that picked ghosts as its focus, as opposed to vampires or werewolves. We even have a ghost special forces in World War II, that's how normalized ghosts are here. There's apparently parts of the government meant to deal with ghosts specifically. This is not really thought out at all, and is just there. Some of the ghosts feel like more classic ghosts; lost souls who seem to repeat the ends of their lives. That's normal, makes sense. But the issue becomes the ghosts this story focuses on, who are more like super-heroes, which is really annoying.
I'm trying to figure out what I can talk about without going into too many spoilers. Probably the writing style. It's so awkward and clunky. The dialogue is atrocious at times. There are times where Dean has people say things that no real person would ever say, because if they spoke like a normal human being, it would give away the twist. Which is how we end up with a character going "Are you... her?" instead of just asking "Are you [insert spoiler name here]?" because again, can't have a character spoil the whole twist! I'll get to the twist in a moment.
The other thing about the writing that drove me insane comes in part two, when we switch to second person. I do not hate second person. I think, when utilized well, it can be extremely interesting. See Harrow the Ninth one of my favorite books of all time. I think the use of second-person here actually was one of the major issues of the book, but that gets into spoiler territory. The non-spoiler complaint I have is the way Dean uses it. Sometimes she will write things out like "You did this" as one normally would. Otherwise, she dropped the "you" entirely. So instead we get sentences like; "Dip and dive through glassy water..." "Step free of your shirt and trousers..." or my most hated "Nod slowly." That was the entire sentence. "Nod slowly." (Page 160, if you're wondering). "Nod slowly." IS NOT A FULL SENTENCE. This was done so many times and just made me increasingly angry each time. As if Dean was afraid to properly use second person, because we never saw this in the other parts that weren't in second person.
That being said, Dean also doesn't know how to use words properly. She doesn't seem to know that the word "overwhelm" is a verb, and not a noun. Twice was the word used as a noun. "...brain thrumming with awe and overwhelm" (pg 152) and "the sheer overwhelm of existing" (pg 229). Once again, overwhelm is a verb. This is not how you use overwhelm in a sentence. At another point we also get the statement that says "...everything single moment..." What? Everything in a single moment? Everything is a single moment? Something else? "Everything single moment" does not make sense. There's another time where it says "...once she and they are both". Just say they! Just say they!!! She and they doesn't make sense! That's now how those words work! That's not how any of these words work!
Oh, here's another non-spoiler; the worst "coming out" for a trans person I think I've seen in a long time. Mercy goes to see an old friend, opens the door, and finds a woman there instead. We are introduced to Erika, who Mercy knew before she transitioned. Mercy is a bit surprised and asks why Erika didn't tell her. Erika basically goes "you don't tell me every change you've had in your life. Why should I tell you about every change in my life?" BECAUSE IT'S A BIG ONE?! I'm sorry, was Erika signing all these letters they wrote to each other with her dead-name? We couldn't even get a "I wanted to tell you in person" or something? This was so laughably bad. Tell me you've never had a trans person come out to you without telling me, sincerely, an actual trans person.
This book also does a lot of telling and not showing. We are told that a character, was a restless child. Never see this. We are also told that she was "a natural chatter box, a chronic over-sharer". Since when!? We never see this! She comes off as kind of shy and awkward actually! Later on we get another that said "in love with this place more than anything or anywhere else in [her] life". REALLY?! I would have loved to have seen that! Because from what I read, she hated it! You can't just tell us these things and not give us any textual evidence to back that up! We actually got the opposite!
The twist, in theory is really interesting, but in execution is not good. But alright, from here on out it's all spoilers.
You know what? I probably could complain more. But I have been typing for over and hour and a half at this point. I'm done. I've had enough. All I've done is make myself increasingly angry about this book to the point where I can't even be coherent about how mad I am. The extremely short version is there's a really, really interesting premise here but the writing and execution was rage inducing for me. Somehow, I managed to finish this book. Somehow. Don't ask me how. I shouldn't have. I should have DNFed this, but I refuse to learn. This book is the reason I'm going to become a vengeful ghost.
July 25, 2026
برخلاف کتابخواران که ریشه در گونهای کاملاً بریتانیایی از فانتزی داشت، این رمان عمیقاً از میراث چینی نویسنده، تاریخ هنگکنگ و فولکلور چین تغذیه میکنه. همین تغییر، به جهان داستان هویت و شخصیت بیشتری بخشیده و اثری غنیتر، غریبتر و در نهایت بسیار جذابتر خلق کرده.
Review of advance copy received from Author
fierce, tender, twisty and compelling, this is a novel about hate and forgiveness, family and betrayal, and the endless hurt of war and anger.
I loved it.
I loved it.
May 29, 2026
2 stars
★★☆☆☆
──────── 👹 ────────
Summary:
The first third of the novel follows Mercy Chan, a middle-aged ‘ghost-talker’ working for the powerful ‘triad’ under Cobra Lily in the walled city of Kowloon, where ghosts flourish in the dark shadows. Rather than performing traditional exorcisms, Mercy speaks to the ghosts, discovers what has kept them bound to this world, and allows them to seek justice for the wrongs they suffered in life. However, Mercy’s ability to do her job is affected by strange visions: flashes of a past she cannot remember. To make matters worse, there is a demon in the city, a water demon, drowning people, and it seems to be linked to Mercy in ways she cannot remember.
As Mercy is confronted by the demon, the Thousand-Faced Girl, we learn that the demon was once a little girl who came with her mother to a Hakka island, Shek Ham Chau, to escape the Japanese incursion during WW2. Her mother, enamoured by the ghosts of her own past, let little Siu Yin have free roam of the island and, in her loneliness, Siu Yin made a strange new friend in the water.
I would recommend this book to:
Readers who like ghosts to be literal, physical presences as well as metaphors for something bigger
Daughters with fraught relationships with their mothers
Readers who enjoy experimental narration, especially direct address or second-person-esque storytelling
I would NOT recommend this book to:
Adult fantasy readers wanting a more complex treatment of war, grief, and family trauma
Readers who dislike books that abruptly switch genre, focus, and narrative style
Readers triggered by wartime violence, colonial violence,mass death, or suicide
──────── 👹 ────────
My thoughts:
Part One of this book had me thinking it was going to be a five-star read for me. It had flaws: the writing was a little juvenile, but that gave some levity to the heavier themes and didn’t detract from everything I was loving about it. An older woman with an awesome job, an interesting and exciting setting inside Kowloon, a cool mystery (who is this ghost/demon? what’s its connection to Mercy?), and a diverse and interesting secondary cast (another badass, morally grey (dark grey) older lady in Cobra Lily, some trans rep in badass teacher and ex-resistance fighter Erika, and bastard ghost cat Bao). I was excited. Seeing Mercy begin to engage with her hallucination-flashbacks, watching her seek out answers to the mystery by climbing into the sewers, it all felt like the makings of a great paranormal thriller.
Then Part Two starts, and it feels like an entirely different book. Mercy Chan is left behind, and we begin to follow Siu Yin, the girl who will later become the Thousand-Faced Girl. The novel is apparently written in first-person omnipresent (POV of a Goddess), but while Mercy Chan’s story reads as third-person, Part Two switches into something closer to second-person, as Siu Yin is addressed as ‘you’.
We leave the urban landscape behind and go to Shek Ham Chau. This setting is more isolated and arguably less exciting. The story is slower and arguably less interesting. The character is more generic than Mercy and lacks her agency. The ‘mystery’ also becomes very solvable, very easy to guess, and you’re left waiting around, playing catch-up, for Siu Yin to figure it out too.
The quality control of the novel also drops beyond plot, character, and story. The Kindle edition had some incredibly distracting typos, all clustered around the end of Part Three:
I did report these, so here’s hoping they’ll be fixed.
I’m also unsure about the messaging of the story as a whole. I love a forgiveness story, and ghosts naturally lend themselves to this sort of moral: the happy ending for a spirit is to let go and move on. However, this is a book that describes many of these ghosts as having been formed because they were killed during wartime violence, including the thousands of ghosts brought into existence by NUCLEAR BOMBS being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The ‘forgive and move on’ messaging therefore feels a little simplistic for such incredibly heavy subject matter.
I really think I would have loved this story if it had been written more maturely, and if the different moving pieces had actually felt like they fit together rather than the narrative feeling so disconnected and all over the place. As it stands, there are really solid ideas here, really interesting cultural worldbuilding, interesting character work, and a strong premise, but the best ideas are mostly frontloaded, and the book is only chugging along after that first 30%.
★★☆☆☆
“If we deserved it, then it wouldn’t be forgiveness, would it? Besides, life isn’t about what we deserve. It’s about how we change, and who we love.”
──────── 👹 ────────
Summary:
The first third of the novel follows Mercy Chan, a middle-aged ‘ghost-talker’ working for the powerful ‘triad’ under Cobra Lily in the walled city of Kowloon, where ghosts flourish in the dark shadows. Rather than performing traditional exorcisms, Mercy speaks to the ghosts, discovers what has kept them bound to this world, and allows them to seek justice for the wrongs they suffered in life. However, Mercy’s ability to do her job is affected by strange visions: flashes of a past she cannot remember. To make matters worse, there is a demon in the city, a water demon, drowning people, and it seems to be linked to Mercy in ways she cannot remember.
As Mercy is confronted by the demon, the Thousand-Faced Girl, we learn that the demon was once a little girl who came with her mother to a Hakka island, Shek Ham Chau, to escape the Japanese incursion during WW2. Her mother, enamoured by the ghosts of her own past, let little Siu Yin have free roam of the island and, in her loneliness, Siu Yin made a strange new friend in the water.
I would recommend this book to:
Readers who like ghosts to be literal, physical presences as well as metaphors for something bigger
Daughters with fraught relationships with their mothers
Readers who enjoy experimental narration, especially direct address or second-person-esque storytelling
I would NOT recommend this book to:
Adult fantasy readers wanting a more complex treatment of war, grief, and family trauma
Readers who dislike books that abruptly switch genre, focus, and narrative style
Readers triggered by wartime violence, colonial violence,mass death, or suicide
──────── 👹 ────────
My thoughts:
Part One of this book had me thinking it was going to be a five-star read for me. It had flaws: the writing was a little juvenile, but that gave some levity to the heavier themes and didn’t detract from everything I was loving about it. An older woman with an awesome job, an interesting and exciting setting inside Kowloon, a cool mystery (who is this ghost/demon? what’s its connection to Mercy?), and a diverse and interesting secondary cast (another badass, morally grey (dark grey) older lady in Cobra Lily, some trans rep in badass teacher and ex-resistance fighter Erika, and bastard ghost cat Bao). I was excited. Seeing Mercy begin to engage with her hallucination-flashbacks, watching her seek out answers to the mystery by climbing into the sewers, it all felt like the makings of a great paranormal thriller.
Then Part Two starts, and it feels like an entirely different book. Mercy Chan is left behind, and we begin to follow Siu Yin, the girl who will later become the Thousand-Faced Girl. The novel is apparently written in first-person omnipresent (POV of a Goddess), but while Mercy Chan’s story reads as third-person, Part Two switches into something closer to second-person, as Siu Yin is addressed as ‘you’.
We leave the urban landscape behind and go to Shek Ham Chau. This setting is more isolated and arguably less exciting. The story is slower and arguably less interesting. The character is more generic than Mercy and lacks her agency. The ‘mystery’ also becomes very solvable, very easy to guess, and you’re left waiting around, playing catch-up, for Siu Yin to figure it out too.
The quality control of the novel also drops beyond plot, character, and story. The Kindle edition had some incredibly distracting typos, all clustered around the end of Part Three:
Page 244: ‘like I tol you’
Page 248: ‘when no words nee be spoken’
Page 255: ‘becaus Kowloon is her home’
Page 260: ‘Wate burns up her nose’
Page 260: ‘Besides you don’t want her to sta in there forever’
Page 266: ‘First for killin Siu Yin’
Page 271: ‘The fu talisma could keep her’
I did report these, so here’s hoping they’ll be fixed.
I’m also unsure about the messaging of the story as a whole. I love a forgiveness story, and ghosts naturally lend themselves to this sort of moral: the happy ending for a spirit is to let go and move on. However, this is a book that describes many of these ghosts as having been formed because they were killed during wartime violence, including the thousands of ghosts brought into existence by NUCLEAR BOMBS being dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The ‘forgive and move on’ messaging therefore feels a little simplistic for such incredibly heavy subject matter.
I really think I would have loved this story if it had been written more maturely, and if the different moving pieces had actually felt like they fit together rather than the narrative feeling so disconnected and all over the place. As it stands, there are really solid ideas here, really interesting cultural worldbuilding, interesting character work, and a strong premise, but the best ideas are mostly frontloaded, and the book is only chugging along after that first 30%.
May 4, 2026
“Do you like ghost stories, little sister? Sit down, get comfortable. You haven’t heard this one before.”
I loved this book. It was a very cathartic reading experience. I went in blind and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was like what if Fredrik Backman wrote a dark urban fantasy or historical fantasy. I say Fredrik Backman because this book deals with a lot of his usual characteristics- unspoken trauma, the impact of loss, social isolation, forgiveness, rebuilding trust, etc.
“How easily she kindles anger in you; how swiftly she stings and lashes out. Only family can hurt family in that way.”
It is one of the most unique books I have read both in terms of the setting and the structure. The story revolves around two lonely women from two different areas and two different timelines and most of the story happens in ghost infected Hong Kong. One of them is a middle-aged ghost-talker that works for a notorious mafia boss and the other woman is seeking vengeance for all the injustice that has been done to her. All three different grammatical voices are used at different points of the story, and even the narrative voice switches from limited to omniscient and even switches between guided and invisible at times within the omniscient parts- but it is all executed very well. The story flows seamlessly and at no point was I confused by the plot points or which character’s head I was in. There is a specific reason the story is written this way as well.
“If each person only corrects the crimes that they have committed themselves, then the world will be full of pain, because evil men do not care about injustice, and so never correct their own.”
As I observed these characters from within their own head and from the outside and through different lenses, I went from one end of the feelings spectrum to the other extreme- all for the same character. It is very emphatic writing and the payoff is extremely worthwhile. This deliberate head-hopping to view different perspectives of the same event is important for the story this book is trying to tell and the place it is trying to take its characters and the readers to at the end. It also takes exceptionally strong writing by the author to present this story with as much clarity and accessibility that it has. I was hooked and went through 70% of the book in one day.
I cannot conclude this review without mentioning that while this book primarily is kind of a character study across two women dealing with internal trauma and grief, it is also a staunchly anti-war book. We learn some of the culture and life of Hong Kong in the 70s but also how China and Hong Kong were affected by the second world war, the Japanese occupation, the plight of refugees at that time, and how war leaves scars that do not go away even after decades of time.
I loved this book. It was a very cathartic reading experience. I went in blind and thoroughly enjoyed it. It was like what if Fredrik Backman wrote a dark urban fantasy or historical fantasy. I say Fredrik Backman because this book deals with a lot of his usual characteristics- unspoken trauma, the impact of loss, social isolation, forgiveness, rebuilding trust, etc.
“How easily she kindles anger in you; how swiftly she stings and lashes out. Only family can hurt family in that way.”
It is one of the most unique books I have read both in terms of the setting and the structure. The story revolves around two lonely women from two different areas and two different timelines and most of the story happens in ghost infected Hong Kong. One of them is a middle-aged ghost-talker that works for a notorious mafia boss and the other woman is seeking vengeance for all the injustice that has been done to her. All three different grammatical voices are used at different points of the story, and even the narrative voice switches from limited to omniscient and even switches between guided and invisible at times within the omniscient parts- but it is all executed very well. The story flows seamlessly and at no point was I confused by the plot points or which character’s head I was in. There is a specific reason the story is written this way as well.
“If each person only corrects the crimes that they have committed themselves, then the world will be full of pain, because evil men do not care about injustice, and so never correct their own.”
As I observed these characters from within their own head and from the outside and through different lenses, I went from one end of the feelings spectrum to the other extreme- all for the same character. It is very emphatic writing and the payoff is extremely worthwhile. This deliberate head-hopping to view different perspectives of the same event is important for the story this book is trying to tell and the place it is trying to take its characters and the readers to at the end. It also takes exceptionally strong writing by the author to present this story with as much clarity and accessibility that it has. I was hooked and went through 70% of the book in one day.
I cannot conclude this review without mentioning that while this book primarily is kind of a character study across two women dealing with internal trauma and grief, it is also a staunchly anti-war book. We learn some of the culture and life of Hong Kong in the 70s but also how China and Hong Kong were affected by the second world war, the Japanese occupation, the plight of refugees at that time, and how war leaves scars that do not go away even after decades of time.
May 15, 2026
GASP
I didn't see that shift coming
And I didn't see the second shift coming
I looooove truly unpredictable stories like this because honestly I'm sick of reading the same tired plots and outcomes over and over.
This is just so good
The cycle of grief (haunting). Not letting injustice consume what's left of your life
A ghost kitty, more looks into folklore, and really just not seeing the shifts and storylines coming together sold this one so hard for me.
IMO this one is spectacular and I'm recommending it for everyone even slightly interested 🖤
I didn't see that shift coming
And I didn't see the second shift coming
I looooove truly unpredictable stories like this because honestly I'm sick of reading the same tired plots and outcomes over and over.
This is just so good
The cycle of grief (haunting). Not letting injustice consume what's left of your life
A ghost kitty, more looks into folklore, and really just not seeing the shifts and storylines coming together sold this one so hard for me.
IMO this one is spectacular and I'm recommending it for everyone even slightly interested 🖤
May 17, 2026
I got this book as this month’s Aardvark picks! I would say I’m satisfied with the choice I made this month in general.
This book opened with one of the most interesting premises I’d read in a while: a triad affiliated, middle aged ghost-talker with a ghost cat companion in Kowloon Walled City in the 1970s. Neat. I loved this world in which ghosts were visible and an accepted part of life, both in the walled city and elsewhere. I ripped through the first part and really enjoyed the unexpected moment at the end of book one.
From there on I have diminishing amounts of praise. I thought at first that the second person omniscient narrator and change of main focus was a little jarring and somewhat confusing. That eventually was tolerable because the twist in this section had a high degree of payoff. Once I “got” what was going on, I really did like it.
For me, the last book was not handled well. I felt like the climax of the whole story was just…talking. Talking? We have ghosts and goddesses and we’re just gonna chit chat at each other about the nature of forgiveness and responsibility? For me it felt like a huge let down. Ultimately, I felt like the author was lecturing through the characters and telling us how to think rather than giving action or dialogue to parse it from.
For me, book one was a 5 star book. Book four was a 2 star book. The rest was somewhere in between. I’m giving it a 3.5 as an average review, understanding that it had a lot of quality inconsistencies.
This book opened with one of the most interesting premises I’d read in a while: a triad affiliated, middle aged ghost-talker with a ghost cat companion in Kowloon Walled City in the 1970s. Neat. I loved this world in which ghosts were visible and an accepted part of life, both in the walled city and elsewhere. I ripped through the first part and really enjoyed the unexpected moment at the end of book one.
From there on I have diminishing amounts of praise. I thought at first that the second person omniscient narrator and change of main focus was a little jarring and somewhat confusing. That eventually was tolerable because the twist in this section had a high degree of payoff. Once I “got” what was going on, I really did like it.
For me, the last book was not handled well. I felt like the climax of the whole story was just…talking. Talking? We have ghosts and goddesses and we’re just gonna chit chat at each other about the nature of forgiveness and responsibility? For me it felt like a huge let down. Ultimately, I felt like the author was lecturing through the characters and telling us how to think rather than giving action or dialogue to parse it from.
For me, book one was a 5 star book. Book four was a 2 star book. The rest was somewhere in between. I’m giving it a 3.5 as an average review, understanding that it had a lot of quality inconsistencies.
Read
June 1, 2026DNF at 200 pages
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