The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean (Hardcover) (PREORDER)

Fiction - Fantasy - Dark Fantasy - Historical - Horror - Occult and Supernatural

RELEASE DATE: 5/5/2026 (WILL SHIP DIRECTLY FROM OUR SUPPLIER'S WAREHOUSE) 

From the USA Today bestselling author of The Book Eaters comes The Girl with a Thousand Faces, a Gothic tale set in a historical Hong Kong that meshes ancient myths and local legends into a haunting story of ghosts, grief, and women who will not forgive.

When Mercy Chan washed up on the shores of Hong Kong with no family, no money, and no memories, she was thrust into the horrors of World War II. She only survived by hiding in Kowloon Walled City, an infamous, ghost-infested slum full of lost and traumatized civilians. Since the end of the war, she has rebuilt her life and found work with the local triad as a ghost-talker, dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt this place. These days, the filthy gutters and cramped alleyways of Kowloon feel like home.

But the past she can’t remember won’t let her go. An unusually powerful ghost has infested 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 realize that the monster she fights within these walls may well be one of her own making.

33 years before, mere days ahead of the Japanese invasion, Sung Siu Yin and her mother flee Hong Kong, intending to hide out on her mother's ancestral island home. It’s beautiful, tranquil, and remote. . . but also inhabited by ghosts ever since the entire village drowned in a storm many years ago. Still, it’s better than living under occupation.

But as the war drags on and isolation sets in, Siu Yin is increasingly drawn into the island's grim past―a past that may still have a hold on the present. There is a darkness lurking beneath that idyllic ocean, and it has been waiting many years for someone to return.

"The Girl With a Thousand Faces confirms Sunyi Dean as one of the most interesting voices in genre fiction.”―Gareth Brown, USA Today bestselling author of The Book of Doors

AUTHOR BIO: 

Sunyi Dean is a biracial fantasy author who was born in Texas, grew up in Hong Kong, and now resides in North England. She writes speculative fiction with a weird slant, and her debut novel, The Book Eaters, was a USA Today bestseller. Back in the day, her high school was a former mission house built on the edge of the original Walled City, and her grandparents lived in Hong Kong through both World Wars. In her spare time, she likes buying whisky, picking up dumbbells, and dying in jiu-jitsu.

Review Quotes:

"The Girl With a Thousand Faces gripped me from the start and refused to let go. It is a mystery, a war story, a tragedy, but more than anything, it is a haunting story of loneliness, love, and loss. The Girl With a Thousand Faces confirms Sunyi Dean as one of the most interesting voices in genre fiction."--Gareth Brown, USA Today bestselling author of The Book of Doors

" The Girl with a Thousand Faces will tear out your heart and heal it in the same breath. Sunyi Dean's hauntingly unique ghost story refuses to be pinned down. Combining the very real horrors of Hong Kong's occupation with one family's female rage and trauma, the story twists and turns with as many faces as the eponymous girl herself."--Eliza Chan, bestselling author of Fathomfolk

"Sunyi Dean returns with a complex, time-twisting, and intensely vivid tale of grief and redemption in historical Hong Kong--with ghosts! I loved it."--Nicholas Binge, author of Ascension

"Part ghostly mystery and part meditation on the traumas of war, The Girl with a Thousand Faces is a haunting exploration of identity, loss, and what it means to forgive."--Amber A. Logan, author of The Secret Garden of Yanagi Inn

"A twisting supernatural mystery hardened by the haunts of war. With alluringly monstrous women and a deep dive into memory, Sunyi Dean digs vividly into the unstable nature of a mid-century Hong Kong caught between ghostly and colonial powers alike."--Wen-yi Lee, author of When They Burned the Butterfly

"In a masterful blend of entertaining and tragic, Dean weaves a gripping tale of war-torn families, aggrieved ghosts, and intergenerational trauma through her signature dual timelines and twists."--Essa Hansen, author of Nophek Gloss

" The Girl with a Thousand Faces is haunting and tense in the very best way. Sunyi Dean has flawlessly blended a vivid historical fantasy with enveloping horror."--Scott Drakeford, author of Rise of the Mages

"With beautiful prose that haunts you well past its conclusion, The Girl with a Thousand Faces breathes new life into the Ghost Story. Dean captures the grief and trauma trapped within Kowloon Walled City and Hong Kong in the wake of WWII without ever letting the personal wounds of familial afflictions escape you. You find yourself deeply moved by the flaws of Mercy and Siu Yin and the stories they shape for each other. This ghost story is not one you soon forget."--Ryan Rose, author of Seven Recipes for Revolution