“Lyrical, sorrowful, and oozing with anguish… An instant YA horror classic.”
— School Library Journal, starred review
A queer YA horror about an art student who must return home and reunite with an estranged boy from her childhood to confront the monster that killed their best friends—before it devours her, too.
Wen-yi Lee (李温仪) is the author of The Dark We Know (Gillian Flynn Books, 2024), a YA horror inspired by Spring Awakening, and When They Burned the Butterfly (Tor, 2025), an adult historical fantasy set in postcolonial Singapore. A Clarion West Workshop alum, her short fiction and essays have appeared in Lightspeed, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, Nightmare, and Reactor, among others, as well as best-of collections and anthologies including Amplitudes: Stories of Queer and Trans Futurity and Singaporean speculative collection Fish Eats Lion Redux. She has written fiction for National Gallery Singapore, The Straits Times, and Smart Nation future thinking projects, and has mentored for programmes like Author Mentor Match and Write Team Mentors.
Her work has been supported by the Carl Brandon Society’s Octavia E Butler Memorial Scholarship, the UK National Centre for Writing, and the National Arts Council of Singapore. She is a graduate of University College London, where she studied at intersections of ecology, anthropology, sociology, and literature, while ultimately spending too much time in the theatre. She is currently based at home in Singapore, where she previously worked in publishing.
Short bio: Wen-yi Lee likes writing about girls with bite, feral nature, and ghosts. She is the author of historical fantasy When They Burned the Butterfly and YA horror The Dark We Know, and has also published speculative fiction and essays in venues like Lightspeed, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, Reactor, and various anthologies. A University College London alum, she is currently based at home in Singapore. You can find her on socials @wenyilee_ and otherwise at wenyileewrites.com.