#sunyi dean

[whilereadingandwalking]

There are so many books I’m excited for in 2026! Are there any on here you’re getting hyped for?

[bangbangwhoa]

books I’ve read in 2026 📖 no. 047

The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean

“The heart is afraid to let go. When hurt is all we’ve known, we are reluctant to relinquish it, and we fear to venture into unfamiliar lands.”

[gabibookworm]

Here’s some beautiful covers of upcoming books! 📚

[virgilean]

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

“We can only live by the light we're given, and some of us are given no light at all. What else can we do except learn to see in the dark?”

[wearethekat]

March Book Reviews: The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean

I received a free copy from Tor Books via Netgalley in exchange for a fair review. Release date May 5th, 2026.

Honestly, I have to admit I requested this book mostly on the strength of its gorgeous cover, although the historical Hong Kong ghost hunting concept played a part too. In The Girl with a Thousand Faces, Mercy Chan is fifty-something, works as a medium in the walled city of Kowloon, and can't remember her past. But that past may be coming back to haunt her… Interspersed with Sung Siu Yin's story thirty years earlier during the Japanese occupation, Mercy hunts a powerful ghost entangled with her forgotten past and fixated on revenge.

This book is structured as a dual-timeline narrative alternating between the Japanese occupation and the Hong Kong of decades later in the seventies. Both POVs slowly unfold the truth of Mercy's past and the secret of the ghost that haunts her. However, despite the fact that substantial parts of the plot take place during a brutal war, hiding from murderous Japanese soldiers or living in a crowded Kowloon surrounded by the ghosts of the war dead is more of a background rather than a major element of the story. At its heart, The Girl with a Thousand Faces is more about family trauma than the horrors of war, and it could be set in any place or time without substantially changing the plot. Far more unique than the plot is Mercy's narrative voice. It's rare to see an older woman as the protagonist of the fantasy novel, and I enjoyed Mercy's fifty-something no-nonsense attitude. She banishes a murderous ghost without batting an eye and leaves to deal with another one before dinner. It's refreshing, especially in contrast to Sung Siu Yin's younger and less confident narration.

Fun setting, but I would have preferred a little more bite—without getting into spoilers, I thought the ending was a little pat. Solidly constructed, but doesn't quite have the sparkle of the exceptional.

[displayheartcode]

You’d eat the whole world to help me out and I think I’d do that for you, too. You’re my monster and I’m yours, and even though I’m sad you lied to me and I’m sorry that we have to hurt more people, we must go together because we are a monster family.

the book eaters by sunyi dean

[queereads-bracket]

Queer Adult SFF Books Bracket: Round 1

Choose a book:

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson

Voting ended onNov 30, 2024

Book summaries below:

The Book Eaters by Sunyi Dean

Out on the Yorkshire Moors lives a secret line of people for whom books are food, and who retain all of a book's content after eating it. To them, spy novels are a peppery snack; romance novels are sweet and delicious. Eating a map can help them remember destinations, and children, when they misbehave, are forced to eat dry, musty pages from dictionaries.

Devon is part of The Family, an old and reclusive clan of book eaters. Her brothers grow up feasting on stories of valor and adventure, and Devon—like all other book eater women—is raised on a carefully curated diet of fairy tales and cautionary stories.

But real life doesn't always come with happy endings, as Devon learns when her son is born with a rare and darker kind of hunger—not for books, but for human minds.

Fantasy, horror, gothic, dark fantasy, contemporary, adult

The Masquerade Series (The Traitor Baru Cormorant, The Monster Baru Cormorant, The Tyrant Baru Cormorant) by Seth Dickinson

Tomorrow, on the beach, Baru Cormorant will look up from the sand of her home and see red sails on the horizon.

The Empire of Masks is coming, armed with coin and ink, doctrine and compass, soap and lies. They’ll conquer Baru’s island, rewrite her culture, criminalize her customs, and dispose of one of her fathers. But Baru is patient. She’ll swallow her hate, prove her talent, and join the Masquerade. She will learn the secrets of empire. She’ll be exactly what they need. And she’ll claw her way high enough up the rungs of power to set her people free.

In a final test of her loyalty, the Masquerade will send Baru to bring order to distant Aurdwynn, a snakepit of rebels, informants, and seditious dukes. Aurdwynn kills everyone who tries to rule it. To survive, Baru will need to untangle this land’s intricate web of treachery - and conceal her attraction to the dangerously fascinating Duchess Tain Hu.

But Baru is a savant in games of power, as ruthless in her tactics as she is fixated on her goals. In the calculus of her schemes, all ledgers must be balanced, and the price of liberation paid in full.

Fantasy, epic fantasy, politics, secondary world, series, adult

[specificpollsaboutbooks]

Favorite BOOK about Books

Round 1

The Bromance Book Club (Lyssa Kay Adams) VS The Reading List (Sara Nisha Adams) VS The Book Eaters (Sunyi Dean)

The Bromance Book Club

The Reading List

The Book Eaters

Show results

Voting ended onMay 5

NO ANTIPROPAGANDA PLEASE

Propaganda under the cut

The Reading List:

a story about how a books can bridge generations and struggles to build stronger relationships between new friends and old

The Book Eaters:

If you were raised on a diet of pure fairy tales, what would you do when you became an adult and learned that the world didn't work that way?