“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 has appeared in Lightspeed, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, and Nightmare, 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 and edited speculative work in venues including Reactor, Apparition Lit, and National Gallery Singapore, 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 Norwich 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 and works in publishing.
Short bio: Wen-yi Lee is the author of YA horror The Dark We Know and forthcoming adult historical fantasy When They Burned the Butterfly. Her writing has appeared in venues like Lightspeed, Uncanny, Reactor, and Strange Horizons, as well as various anthologies. She is based in Singapore and is a graduate of University College London, and likes writing about girls with bite, feral nature, and ghosts. Find her on socials @wenyilee_ and otherwise at wenyileewrites.com.