announcing my adult fantasy duology!!
WHEN THEY BURNED THE BUTTERFLY: a sapphic fantasy in 1970s postcolonial Singapore gangs, coming Fall 2025 from Tor
I should be promoting my debut novel comes out in 2 weeks, but this is not about that book. I’m SO SO thrilled to announce that my adult debut, WHEN THEY BURNED THE BUTTERFLY, the first of a sapphic historical fantasy duology, is coming out from Tor in Fall 2025!!!!
Here’s the working synopsis:
Wen-yi Lee’s fierce, glamorous adult debut is Jade City meets Silvia Moreno-Garcia and the feverish intensity of RF Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy, a sapphic historical fantasy reimagining the secret societies of postcolonial Singapore.
Singapore, 1972: Newly independent, a city of immigrants grappling for power in a fast-modernizing world. Here, gangsters are the last conduits of the gods their ancestors brought with them, and the back alleys where they fight are the last place where magic has not been assimilated and legislated away.
Loner schoolgirl Adeline Siow has never needed more company than the flame she can summon at her fingertips. But when her mother dies in a house fire with a butterfly seared onto her skin and Adeline hunts down a girl she saw in a back-alley barfight—a girl with a butterfly tattoo–she discovers she’s far from alone.
Ang Tian is a Red Butterfly: one of a gang of girls who came from nothing, sworn to a fire goddess and empowered to wreak vengeance on the men that abuse and underestimate them. Adeline’s mother led a double life as their elusive patron, Madam Butterfly. Now that she’s dead, Adeline’s bloodline is the sole thing sustaining the goddess. Between her search for her mother’s killer and the gang’s succession crisis, Adeline becomes quickly entangled with the girls’ dangerous world, and even more so with the charismatic Tian.
But no home lasts long around here. Ambitious and paranoid neighbor gangs hunt at the edges of Butterfly territory, and bodies are turning up in the red light district suffused with a strange new magic. Adeline may have found her place for once, but with the streets changing by the day, it may take everything she is to keep it.
You can read an early excerpt and more about the book here on Reactor! You can also add it on Goodreads, and feast on this art of Adeline and Tian by @kitsukkit:
more about BUTTERFLY
Like the synopsis says, I thought about a mix of the following while writing BUTTERFLY:
Jade City: postcolonial Asian gangs with magic in a small island nation grappling with modernisation and globalisation (Jade City was partially inspired by late 20th-century Singapore! I probably would not ever have thought I could write Butterfly if I hadn’t read Jade City)
Poppy War: specifically its main character, Rin, aka a feral girl with problematic access to a fire god
Azula from Legend of Aang: as you can see from above, Adeline’s character design is effectively modern Azula AU, but I also think about Azula’s meangirlness and mommy issues
Arcane: magic underworld lesbians in a time of change and industry
Last Night at the Telegraph Club: I read this in early drafting—20th century queer/sapphic hangouts and diaspora Chinatown landscapes, and lesbians coming of age
I also conversed and read on books like Kevin Blackburn’s The Comfort Women of Singapore and Jing Jing Lee’s How We Disappeared; I’d also think about Rachel Heng’s The Great Reclamation in speculative fiction spanning Singapore’s rapid 20th century changes. But there’s also so much reading about the random historical details (notable fires! the history of getai! kidnappings and robberies and raids! metric conversion initiatives! the 1972 christian revival! education statistics!) and so many trawled archival newspaper articles that it’s all an infusion.
BUTTERFLY started in 2021 when my friend sent me a Tiktok about a girl gang that existed in Singapore in the 60s, called Red Butterfly (红蝴蝶, or Ang Hor Tiap). I had been looking for something in local female histories, and this struck the vein instantly. I had a pitch and a Pinterest board within the day, and I had half a first draft done before I got an offer of representation for The Dark We Know and had to set it aside.
I worked on it on and off across 2022 while I was on submission for TDWK. We heard some early informal interest for it in the summer, and I committed to finishing it—right before, once again, we sold TDWK and I had to set BUTTERFLY aside. I finally finished and revised it in 2023; we went out on sub, and I sold it in November last year to the dream publisher that is Tor. I’ve grown a wild amount as a writer since I started writing it in 2021, and it feels right.
BUTTERFLY started self-indulgent: gaslight gatekeep girlboss sapphics with fire magic and knives. Then, as I dived more into the time period, I found more and more layers, and I realised that wasn’t the book it wanted to be. It is still a little self-indulgent, on both the fronts of slightly toxic girls with god complexes and me connecting with my own histories, but it quickly stopped being a fun little revenge romp. That time period, for me, is about anxiety and forming identities and transformation so rapid it’s almost breathless. I found a lot of resonance between the new independence of a nation and a coming-of-age story. Everything shifts in this book, from people to place to old gods. It’s about girls and bodies and narratives. It’s a homage to my parents’ and grandparents’ Singapore that no longer really exists. It’s a Chinese fantasy world that is very specifically about the Straits Chinese diaspora and its unique culture. It is a love letter and exploration and attempt at memorial. It’s a little terrifying, to be honest, to be writing a historical when the people who lived in that time are still alive to fact-check me—but I hope I’ve done it justice.
BUTTERFLY and its sequel (!) are entirely different books from The Dark We Know—in genre, in scope, in tone, in craft. I’m exceedingly proud of what it’s shaping up to be (I’m on deadline for revision right now) and I’m so excited to share it next fall.
THE DARK WE KNOW events
Okay yes I do still want to plug things for the book I have coming out in 2 weeks. You can still submit preorder receipts for the preorder campaign. And I have a few upcoming events, both in Singapore and online! Click for info & signups:
Online book launch (in conversation with Gillian Flynn)
14 August, 8pm ET / 15 August 8am SGT, Loyalty Bookstore
Singapore launch (in conversation with Felicia Low)
17 August, 4pm, Book Bar
Book Talks: Twists & Tropes (with Lauren Ho)
24 August, 2pm, Kinokuniya Takashimaya Singapore
IG Live Talk with Trinity Nguyen
31 August, 10pm ET, 7pm PT/1 September, 10am SGT
currently consuming
Some current and recent things I loved:
The City in Glass by Nghi Vo: a romantic and dazzling re(creation) myth that moved me unexpectedly deeply with its sense of loss, rebuilding, storytelling & placemaking
House of the Dragon: maybe I’ve been revising Butterfly with a head full of Emma D’arcy edits….
The Scarlet Throne by Amy Leow: more problematic, ambitious girls!! a true fantastical villain origin story
How Much Of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang: a sweeping Chinese American Western. I was a little thrown by the way the Mandarin is incorporated, but otherwise it’s gorgeous and haunting. I’m not a Booker Prize Follower but I pick them up occasionally, and this was a journey.