introduction:

Sunyi Dean (sun-yee deen) is a multi-award-losing author of speculative fiction. Though born in Texas and raised in Hong Kong, she now resides in Northern England. Her debut novel, THE BOOK EATERS, was an instant #2 Sunday Times Bestseller.

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.

Her highly-anticipated sophmore novel, THE GIRL WITH A THOUSAND FACES, will hit stores in May 2026.

contact:

For enquiries about foreign rights, and book blurbing, please contact her literary agent, Harry Illingworth. Sunyi requests that her blurbs not be used on books which make use of AI covers.

For anything else, you can email Sunyi directly.

published novels

the book eaters

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.

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.

the girl with a thousand faces

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.

REVIEWS

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REVIEWS -

“I devoured this."

—V. E. Schwab, New York Times bestselling author

“Raw and imaginative, this gritty, gothic anti-fairytale knows the truth: love will make a villain out of anyone.”

—Olivie Blake, New York Times bestselling author of The Atlas Six

“Innovative, unique, poignant, and told with a voice as original as the story itself. I finished this novel in that one sitting, yet I’ll be pondering it for a long time to come. This is the debut of a new master of the modern fantasy. Don’t miss it.”

—James Rollins, #1 New York Times bestseller of The Starless Crown

“This beautiful, delicate, cruel, utterly unique look at tradition, motherhood, trauma, and what it means to be a monster would be a masterpiece from an established author. As a debut, it is nothing short of stunning. It kept surprising me all the way to the end.”

—Seanan McGuire, New York Times bestselling author

“A powerful story of overwhelming mother love, as something both powerful and potentially horrific. It’s a book that delves into the need to survive even when a system is built to break you or determined to crush you; a powerful queer story about difference that refuses to flinch away from difficult choices or the impact of trauma, both generational and inflicted. Readers will devour this compelling, rich fantasy.”

—Booklist, starred review

“Dean’s unputdownable debut gives the phrase “voracious reader” a new, very literal meaning … The fascinating magic system, impeccable and unusual worldbuilding, and well-shaded characters will keep readers riveted through every twist of this wild ride.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A exquisitely-crafted tale of those who break free of the stories written for them and forge their own in ink and blood. I couldn’t put it down.”

—H.G. Parry, author of The Unlikely Escape of Uriah Heep

“A fascinating debut with shades of gothic fantasy and contemporary thriller, wrapped in a narrative full of vivid and detailed characters and worldbuilding, and an unusual premise.”