Boundless Press | The Girl with a Thousand Faces

The Girl with a Thousand Faces

Sunyi Dean

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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

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Posts about this title from Boundless Press

Boundless Press\ \ Jananie\ \ • Oct 21 2025

new releases & upcoming books that sound cool (& that you should add to your TBR) 📚

are your excited for any of these releases?!

19 books

Posts about this book from across Bindery

Chanterelle Solace\ \ Sabie\ \ • Jun 22

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4 Emotional Reads that you should pick up

A Botanical Horror, Arabfuturism, Gaslamp Fantasy & a Gothic Fantasy with Ghosts and local legends set in Hong Kong

5 books

Chanterelle Solace\ \ Sabie\ \ • Jun 22

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[> “If each person only corrects the crimes that they have committed themselves, then the world will be full of pain, because evil men do not care about injustice, and so never correct their own.”\ \ \ \ GENRE: Historical Gothic Fantasy\ \ RATING: 5/5 (would be 6 if I could give it 6 stars!!!!)\ \ FORMAT: Physical ARC\ \ Overall Impression: What a story like honestly, WHAT A STORYY!! This would get 6 stars if I could give it that and what a beautiful ode to Historical Fantasy with retellings, gothic and horror elements.\ \ Review: \ \ I hope this review does the book justice but this is literally a beautiful lyrical, well-written book that has so many different parts all blended together to bring us the story of Mercy Chan. It's set in Hong Kong around the time of World War II and more specifically in Kowloon Walled City.\ \ We have mythical creatures, ghosts, action, politics and just people being human after all. We start off with Mercy in her 50s being a ghost hunter with a cat spirit as her sidekick animal and as we continue, this becomes a story of generational trauma in Mercy's family. We see the impact of a few people in one family and how it can change history and lives overall.\ \ Not only is this book written so well but it combines political elements while showing us what happens due to war and colonisation. It shows how things continue to be impacted by it long after it finishes.\ \

“War does not finish,” he said heavily. “It is not a game that stops when enough players quit. It is a wound, sinking into flesh, leaving scars and rot for a long time.”\ \ But perhaps, most importantly, the message here is that hurt people will continue to hurt people. It shows that one pain can multiple and continue to do so until it is dealt with and if you choose to never deal with it? Well, history continues to repeat again and again till we address it. We also see how people that are self-serving and don't function to better themselves and the community are harmful to everyone around them and also inflict pain, whether intentionally or not. \ \ Honestly, what a book. Sunyi has said that it took her a few years to write The Girl with a Thousand Faces and you can tell she poured her whole heart into it. She took so many narrative choices that we don't see a lot of (like second POV) and did it SO well and so fittingly for the story. I truly cannot wait to read more by Sunyi and go back and read The Book Eaters.\ \ I was provided a free advance reader copy and I’m sharing my honest thoughts.\ \ Join for free or login](https://cozysabie.binderybooks.com/item/IopI3XR5zZjO28H24rlD/)

A heartbreaking, emotional Historical Gothic Fantasy set in Hong Kong with Ghosts and Local Legends: The Girl with a Thousand Faces

Ghosts, Local Legends and Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong during World War II? This is a book you MUST read!

1 book

Wild Card Reads\ \ Samia (bookaroundandfindout)\ \ • Jun 1

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[Hi friends — and welcome to the very first Wild Card Dispatch. This is my newsletter to share with you my thoughts and book rants and updates to how this Bindery works! First of all, thank you so much for being here, it really means the world to me. 🥹\ \ So I literally just moved to new apartment this weekend after six years. Moving has been chaos in the best way, but the part I'm genuinely obsessed with is plotting out my little reading nook with bookshelf galore and my plants and a cosy sitting spot and ahhh!!! \ \ Because May was AAPI Month, I made a real point of filling my stack with AAPI authors. And because I'm physically incapable of staying in one genre for more than five minutes, the haul ended up being a horror, a satire, two romances, a literary mystery, and a historical fantasy epic — which is the most "me" sentence I've ever typed and exactly what Wild Card Reads is supposed to feel like.\ \ So let's get into it, in literally no particular order at all. \ \ The Winged Game — Sophie Kim ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ \ \ You know that feeling when you need a book to just remind you that reading is fun? This was that book for me. It's a fantasy SPORTS romance — yes, both of those things, together, and I had no idea I needed it — with enemies-to-lovers banter so good that Taissa and Kion's internal monologues had me cackling out loud. There's real depth under all the humor too, with backstories and a found family I got genuinely attached to, plus I learned an alarming amount of Scottish slang along the way. I'm a Sophie Kim girl now, no notes, and I will be reading 800 more pages in this world if she'll let me. It really brought joy to my heart. \ \ Out of Her League — Ava Rani ⭐⭐⭐ \ \ A cute, sparkly beach-day read, and I'm being honest with you the way I always am: it was a solid time, not a life-changer. What I loved was an FMC who refuses to sacrifice her career for anyone, real rep for women in medicine, a genuinely sweet and understanding MMC, and that supportive-best-friend energy I'm always a sucker for. It lost a little shine for me with some repeated lines and an ex-boyfriend storyline I expected more tension from. But if you want something low-stakes and warm to read with an iced coffee in the sun, this does the job nicely.\ \ Yellowface — R.F. Kuang ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ \ \ The moral of the story? White women are crazy. June steals the work of her Asian friend Athena (who's dead) and then somehow convinces herself she's the victim, and watching her gaslight everyone — including herself — was a hilarious ride. It's a razor-sharp look at how publishing decides which books are "bestsellers" and how Asian authors basically have to be brilliant just to get in the door. I listened on audio and cannot recommend it enough; the narrator's sarcasm is hysterical. This is literary satire for sure and I know a lot people didn't like it but I think I came in with such low expectations that I ended up being surprised. \ \ The Girl with a Thousand Faces — Sunyi Dean ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ \ \ This one starts as a ghostly detective tale set in 1940s Hong Kong, post-invasion, and slowly unfolds into something so much bigger — a story about war's scars, revenge, and how generational trauma lingers even thirty-plus years later. The layered structure absolutely hooked me, and the blend of real history with the supernatural felt both completely fresh and deeply moving. There were parts of the book told in second person as well and it was weird because I don't think I've read that much second person POV. If you're drawn to ghost stories that actually have a beating heart and historical weight behind them, this might be for you. It's not really scary or horror I would say, so if you were apprehensive let that change your mind and try it out! \ \ Men Like Ours — Bindu Bansinath ⭐⭐⭐⭐ \ \ Let me be upfront: this book made me deeply uncomfortable, and I think that was entirely the point. It's set in a South Asian suburban enclave in New Jersey where a man is found dead in his BMW and the women of the neighborhood get pulled into figuring out what happened. The mystery kept me turning pages, but what it's really about is what happens to people when community becomes a pressure cooker of unfulfilled lives. It takes some of the most painful tendencies that can exist in South Asian culture and concentrates them all into one street, and it's stressful precisely because none of it is invented — but it's also not all of us. One of the main characters, Anita, lived in my head rent-free because you wanted to hate her but you also deeply sympathized with the cards she got. It was bleak, dark, strange, but oddly hard to put down. \ \ Burn the Sea — Mona Tewari ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ \ \ I genuinely did not expect a book about Portuguese colonizers reimagined as giant half-snake sea monsters to wreck me this much, but here we are. Watching Abbakka go from a reluctant queen shoved onto a throne she never asked for into an actual hero for her whole country was everything — you feel every ounce of her doubt and grief, so by the end she's earned every inch of that strength. What stuck with me most was how the book handles grief: the way sometimes you don't get to stop and fall apart, you just keep moving until you're somewhere safe enough to actually feel it. The South Asian culture on the page was so beautiful I felt genuinely seen, and knowing this is Mona's debut, written because she wanted to see herself in fiction, makes it land even harder. (Tiny proud-aunt moment: this one's a Bindery Books title, and championing debuts like this is exactly why I'm here.)I am THIRSTING for book two. \ \

- *\ \ Suprise: the Wild Card Book Club is officially happening 📚! \ \ Woooo! So, the whole reason I built Wild Card Reads was to have a place where we could actually talk about books beyond a 60-second video where I'm gesturing wildly at a cover. So I'm genuinely thrilled to tell you the Wild Card Book Club is here.\ \ Here's how it works:\ \

Everyone — free members too — gets into the Discord, where we hang out, scream about plot twists, and post unhinged reactions in real time. Come say hi!\ \
$5 members get the heart of it: our monthly live virtual book club session (real faces, real conversation, actual humans!), potential guest appearances by authors, early reveals of what we're reading next so you can grab the book in time, and a say in what we pick together. You and me, building the TBR of our lives.\ \
$12 members get everything above, plus first dibs on the bigger stuff I'm dreaming up for down the road — including, fingers crossed, some in-person meetups one day. 🤞\ \ \ Our first pick and the full details — how to join the live session, the date, and a guest I'm very excited about — are dropping in a dedicated post later this week. Keep your eyes peeled. 👀\ \

- *\ \ okay, now help me out of my slump \ \ I hope you pick up one of these books or if you have already read one message me in the Discord chat so we can yap! \ \ Now I need you, what should I read next? I've started a few books while I wait for my copy of The Ballad of Fallen Dragons to arrive so I need some recs. What did you read for AAPI Month that I have to get my hands on? Come yell at me in the Discord — and not for nothing, a few of these picks could be on the book club shortlist. 👀\ \ Thank you for being here for dispatch #1. I hope someone read this to the end because I YAPPED. \ \ Talk soon, Samia 🌷](https://thebookaroundlounge.binderybooks.com/item/vZNlN0iq1olAzHTGDnAw/)

Newsletter: Wild Card Dispatch ✦ AAPI Month Recap + Hello!

6 books

Chanterelle Solace\ \ Sabie\ \ • Jun 1

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17 books that make me feel seen because ...

Is there any book(s) that you feel makes you seen? 👀

Books that make me feel seen belong to a lot of categories, including those that focus on found family, cozy fantasy and retellings. A lot of the themes that tie this books together are finding a place where you belong, having our stories told with the beauty and fairness they deserve and being accepted wholly for who you are 🤎

Each of this piles carry books that are in different genres, including Cozy Fantasy, Romance, Retellings and Anthologies to name a few but I saw myself in each of them! Sometimes it was the representation like Aicha, being a Moroccan Retelling as someone who is from there or a Muslim Romance in The Mis-Arrangement of Sanaa Saeed! I also saw alot of my struggles as a disabled/CI in Its all in your Head and there’s a piece of my in all of these books🥺

And the STEM field Related books will always have a special place in my heart because of how relatable it is as someone who works in the field!

And here is a list of all the books mentioned in this post: 🍄 It’s all in your head by Sabina Nordqvist 🍄 The Mis-Arrangement of Sana Saeed by Noreen Mughees 🍄 The Between-Worlds B&B by Amy Mae Baxter 🍄 The Ex-Perimento by Maria J. Morillo 🍄 The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow 🍄 Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett 🍄 Best Hex Ever by Nadia El-Fassi 🍄 House of Frank by Kay Synclaire 🍄 Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal-Mohtar 🍄 A Witch’s Guide to Love and Poison by Aamna Quershi 🍄 The Fortune Tellers of Rue Daru by Olesya Salnikova Gimore 🍄 The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean 🍄 Aicha by Soraya Bouazzaoui 🍄 Weavingshaw by Heba Al-Wasity 🍄 One Yellow Eye by Leigh Radford 🍄 Love and Other Brain Experiments by Hannah Brohm 🍄 Next Level Love by Shameez Patel

17 books

The Coterie\ \ Mikah Mia Reads\ \ • May 28

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\ \ The votes are in and we are reading Sunyi Dean’s The Girl with a Thousand Faces in June! I am so excited to dive into this gritty urban fantasy with you guys. Can’t wait to hear your thoughts!!\ \ Also, don’t forget to check the Discord for this month’s giveaway winner and virtual meetup details ☺️](https://thecoterie.binderybooks.com/item/517MVKNCHeuPPkNmdd5B/)

June Pick: The Girl with a Thousand Faces

1 book

The Coterie\ \ Mikah Mia Reads\ \ • May 23

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Poll:\ \ what should we read in June?\ \ It’s almost June, and that means it’s time to pick our next book club read! I wanted to give us three fun and fresh options, so I’ve been keeping a close eye on new fantasy releases and have picked three that snagged my attention. Like many of you, I read Veronica Roth as a teenager and am very intrigued by her new adult fantasy release 👀 Sunyi Dean is the author of one of my favorite fantasy standalones, The Book Eaters, and I’m confident that her latest release will be just as good! And of course, we’ve read R.J. Barker together in the past (remember The Bone Ships?). His newest release is bound to be incredible!\ \ Voting will close on Tuesday, May 26th and our June pick/giveaway winner will be announced on the 27th (which also happens to my birthday heyooo) ☺️ Can’t wait to see what we settle on!!\ \ Seek the Traitor’s Son by Veronica Roth\ \ Elegy Ahn did not ask for destiny to find her. She is happy with her life as a soldier, defending her small country from the Talusar, a powerful nation who worships a deadly Fever. A fever that blesses half of its victims with mysterious gifts. But then she’s summoned to hear a prophecy—her, and the most ruthless of Talusar generals, Rava Vidar. Brought face to face, they learn that one of them will lead their people to victory over the other… but they don’t know which. And at the center of both of their fates: a man. A man that, Elegy is told, she will fall in love with. In just one day, Elegy’s old life—her job, her purpose, and her future—is over. She and Rava are destined to collide, with the fate of their nations hanging in the balance. And when they do, only one will be left standing. Elegy intends to make sure it’s her.\ \ The Girl with a Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean\ \ When Mercy Chan washes up on the shores of Hong Kong with no family, no money, and no memories, the only refuge she finds is the infamous, ghost-infested slum of Kowloon Walled City. Since then, she has rebuilt her life, working for the local triad as a ghost talker and dealing with the angry and bitter spirits who haunt the district. The filthy gutters and cramped alleyways of Kowloon have become her home. But the past Mercy can’t remember isn’t done with her. An unusually powerful ghost has infested Kowloon’s waterways, drowning innocents and threatening the district. It claims to know Mercy—and secrets from her past that are best left forgotten. 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.\ \ Mortedant’s Peril by R.J. Barker\ \ Irody Hasp is a Mortedant, a cleric tasked with reading the last thoughts of the dead—though no one thanks him for it. No Mortedant is popular, but Irody is scarcely tolerated even by the other members of his own guild, and rarely selected for anything but the lowliest of jobs. This impoverished existence would be dismal enough—but after reading the corpse of a low-level records keeper, Irody’s troubles quickly multiply when his own apprentice is murdered, and all fingers point to him as a suspect. The only way to save his own skin is to find the real culprit himself, an investigation that quickly attracts powerful enemies with few scruples, and draws him into a plot that threatens the entire corrupt yet wondrous city he calls home.\ \ Join for free or login

June Voting!!

3 books

Two Stories Bookshop\ \ Queer-Owned Shelves🌈\ \ • May 5

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[Hello, everyone! \ \ Here are some May 5th releases we are excited for!\ \

Platform Decay (Murderbot #8) - Martha Wells (*)\ \
The Girl With a Thousand Faces - Sunyi Dean\ \
The Last Contract of Isako - Fonda Lee \ \
One Leg on Earth - 'Pemi Aguda\ \ \ (\* means Ryn has read and recommends!)\ \ Other News:\ \
We have our Penguin Random House account set up so soon we can start selling new books in our store! (At least from PRH and imprints)\ \
Our website is back up and running, with listings to come online later this week!\ \
Our Kickstarter is still going--we will be sharing posts on socials soon so please share away!\ \
A merch reorder is going to happen in June with more stickers, both bookmark designs, and pride-themed stickers as well! Stay tuned.\ \ \ Thank you all for your support! Remember you can still order new books from us by using our Bookshop.org link! \ \ Till next time!](https://twostoriesbookshop.binderybooks.com/item/o5xESgDrLJoAQ6N5lxb2/)

May 5, 2026 Releases

4 books

Ronnica Reads\ \ Ronnica Fatt\ \ • May 4

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