One of my favorite tropes in fantasy is magic linked to body horror. Especially more so when it is treated as a volatile resource, calling into question the price of chasing power. Naturally, I had a fantastic time with Wen-Yi Lee’s When They Burned the Butterfly (October 21, 2025): a bloody, fiery saga about the horror and alarming thrill of unchecked ambition and violence. With its unique magical system of hungry gods, bodily tithes, and devoted human vessels, this sapphic historical fantasy novel is as much a tale about generational trauma as it is about postcolonial nation-building.
Set in 1970s Singapore, Butterfly’s neon lit, neo-noir urban fantasy thriller plays out against a city where magic is criminalized by law; yet, in the back alleys of warehouses and docks, gangsters still summon the ancient gods of their ancestors, channeling old magic of various forms to attain power and dispose of their enemies. Think the gritty urban anti-capitalism horror of Chainsaw Man, meets the nighttime dreamlike cityscapes of Wong Kar-Wai’s films.
Our heroine Adeline Siow, however, is no sinister Singapore crime lord. She is just a schoolgirl, albeit one who secretly wields fire magic. But when her mother is killed in a mysterious house fire, with a butterfly tattoo branded upon her body, Adeline realises she wasn’t the only one in her family keeping dangerous secrets.
Enter the Red Butterfly girls: a gang of impoverished young women sworn to a fire goddess, seeking bloody vengeance against the men that have abused them. Their de facto leader–a butch gangster named Ang Tian–teams up with Adeline to hunt down her mother’s killer, and to choose the next successor for the fire goddess. But when dangerous new enemies encroach upon Butterfly territory, and gruesomely massacred bodies pile up in the red light district, the two young women realise they must uncover and vanquish the sinister magic soon, or lose everything they have come to cherish…including their growing feelings for each other.
“I don’t quite see [Butterfly] as a nation-building book,” Wen-Yi Lee writes, in the author’s note, “but it is set in the active construction site of it, dust and debris and sharp things at all.” This imagery of new civilizations erected from the debris of the past pervades the story. Here is an ambitious novel, and a powerful one—in terms of scale, historical context and the themes it encompasses: Singaporean colonial history, old magic versus 20th century urbanization, industrialized religion, the harsh lives of marginalized communities (immigrants, impoverished working classes, sex workers, trans and queer women) drug rackets, organized crime, and also, perhaps most importantly, the heinous medicalization and exploitation of Asian women. There is a lot of brutality here; everyone–Adeline included–is broken, ugly, mean-spirited. Everyone is surviving by betrayal, by fighting tooth and nail in the streets. It all feels terribly bleak, and refreshingly real, especially in this ocean of recent cozy, apolitical sci-fi/fantasy publications.
The reader must adjust certain expectations while tackling a novel of such intense ferocity. This is not a romantasy; in fact, the fantasy elements take a backseat to the politicking and turf wars. (Fonda Lee’s The Green Bone Saga is somewhat comparable in terms of vibes and worldbuilding). There is also the matter of the central romance and its power/class dynamics. Adeline and Ang Tian are both lesbians, and while it is deliciously satisfying to see a butch-femme lead couple in a tradpub Asian adult fantasy novel, know that their dynamic is harsh, often fraught with tensions, double loyalties and less-than-charitable thoughts towards each other. Nevertheless, their lesbian identities are deeply significant, with Lee also exploring sapphic Singaporean history through allusions to 1970s magazines, cinema and other cultural artifacts in the storyline.
I must also add a warning that several central characters meet rather tragic endings, and there is significant violence–the author has added a note for sensitivity and nuance–against historically vulnerable communities. If you have read grimdark fantasy like Baru Cormorant or She Who Became the Sun, you may expect something similar here.
In the end, however, When They Burned the Butterfly isn’t merely a bleak treatise about cyclical trauma and abuse. It is a really brave book, not in the shallow “diverse” publishing sense, but because it challenges genre conventions. By contextualizing the story via a real community and postcolonial trauma, it refuses to give the reader the comfort of an easy, happy ending and an alternate retelling of the past. I know some people will be upset, perhaps even angry, after they have read the book; it is not exactly a neat or idyllic ending. But in many ways, it is the very anger that the narrative inspires, which makes Butterfly all the more effective as a tale. And personally, I would take brave, angry fantasy stories over boring, safely cozy ones. Any day.
Please add When They Burned the Butterfly on your TBR on Goodreads and follow Wen-Yi Lee on Instagram (@wenyilee_) and her website (wenyileewrites.com).
RATING: *****
TRIGGERS: Fire, Body Horror, Gore and Injury, Violence, Gun Violence, Death of Loved Ones, Homophobia, Panic Attacks, Medical Malpractice, Workplace Misogyny, Child Abuse, Allusions to Rape and Sexual Harassment, Murder, Police Brutality
