Book cover of When They Burned the Butterfly

Book description

In this fierce, glamorous adult fantasy debut, Silvia Moreno-Garcia meets Fonda Lee, with the feverish intensity of R.F. Kuang's Poppy War trilogy.

Singapore, 1972: Newly independent and grappling for power in a fast-modernizing world. Here, gangsters in Chinese secret societies are the last conduits of their ancestors' migrant gods, and…

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1 author picked When They Burned the Butterfly as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Sixteen-year-old Adeline Siow and her single mother live together in 1972 Singapore. Mother is part owner of a high-end department store. Beautiful, bratty and smart, Adeline attends a private girls school. She and her mother have a unique talent. Through thoughts and hand motions, they can make fire emerge from their fingertips. Mother dies suddenly in a massive home fire when Adeline is away. Soon Adeline learns that her mother led a secret life as leader of twenty or more Red Butterfly girls, each of whom came from poverty and abuse but now can wield the fire power. Madeline’s mother…

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December on 5C4 by Adam Strassberg,

Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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