Where Rivers Made the Gods

Return to a city of warring gangs, blazing fire, and fading gods in the sequel to Wen-yi Lee’s acclaimed adult fantasy debut—a fierce historical fantasy that reads like Silvia Moreno-Garcia meets Fonda Lee, with the feverish intensity of R. F. Kuang’s Poppy War trilogy.

Death cannot stop love—or change.

Singapore, 1975: A city in remaking. Rivers scourged. Cemeteries dug up. Islands moving between ships from a fallen Saigon. Nothing stops progress–except the vessel of a fire goddess, who wants to bring back the dead.

Iris Yen Wan, haunted and homeless, uses her ghosts to locate corpses for a gravedigger. Then she stumbles upon an apartment where a girl with butterfly tattoos has been preserved for two years. When Iris goes near, the corpse's eyes open. Now Adeline Siow, the madly grieving Madam Butterfly, is offering Iris a room, hoping that her murdered lover will wake again.

But Iris’s new home comes with strange and bloody strings. Shapeshifters and girls with fire follow Iris in the streets. A death god’s resentful son visits every night. In the industrial heart of the city, a crucible burns where godless men kill to touch magic once more.

And within the haunted apartment, a dangerous attraction stirs amidst the perpetually burning candles. With it grows the fear that Ang Tian might never truly come back.

Or worse, that she might—and bring something inhuman along with her.