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Cover Design: Luísa Dias
AVAILABLE May 4th 2027
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“Sinister, eerie, and cerebral, Soon You’ll Be Just Like Us is a futuristic gem. Chin-Sun Lee’s deft, nuanced explorations of identity are especially rich. She is definitely an author to watch.” —Sierra Greer, author of Annie Bot
“Soon You’ll Be Just Like Us is a propulsive, wildly inventive novel about surviving in a body, a city, and a world that keeps asking you to become someone else. Chin-Sun Lee writes with dark, dazzling precision about the terrible things we’ll do to survive. Unsparing, unsettling, and wholly unique.” —Kimberly King Parsons, author of We Were the Universe
“Propulsive, chilling, and impossible to predict, Soon You’ll Be Just Like Us explores the lengths we go to reinvent ourselves in a capitalist patriarchy that bends women to its will. A novel I’ll never forget. Chin-Sun Lee has masterfully crafted a relentless descent into the darkest night. Don’t forget to breathe.” —Maggie Su, author of Blob
“Set in an all-too-believable near-future dystopia, Soon You’ll Be Just Like Us is a riveting and timely novel that takes our society’s obsession with youth and longevity to disturbing conclusions. In beautiful, descriptive prose, Chin-Sun Lee probes the tensions between ethics and capitalism, providing no easy answers. I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. —E.K. Sathue, author of Youthjuice
“Chin-Sun Lee’s Soon You’ll Be Just Like Us is an explosive, twisty thriller that filled me with dread. And yet I had a total blast reading it. I grieved – and cheered – as I read its final shocking pages.” —Lindsay Hunter, author of Hot Springs Drive
A young Korean American journalist grasps at status and security through a maze of medical experimentation in sci-fi horror thriller Soon You’ll Be Just Like Us:
In near-future, dystopian LA, struggling journalist Lily Han is desperate to save herself from career failure and deportation when the entertainment news show Off-Ramp offers an unbelievable proposition. She agrees to undergo extensive cosmetic surgery – more popular than ever, and the subject of unsettling protests by fringe feminist group #AsIs – to chronicle its effects on her life.
Lily’s surgery grants her beauty and influence but draws the attention of #AsIs, and as she investigates the group, their activism grows bloodthirsty. A doomed love affair followed by personal tragedy draws her further into a tangle of medical experimentation and chilling malpractice. She can only trust herself – that is, if you can trust someone you know longer recognize.
Merging psychological and body horror, Soon You’ll Be Just Like Us confronts feminism, patriarchy, identity, and the ethics of survival at any cost.
Cover Design: Jaya Nicely
Cover Art: Aron Wiesenfeld
Publishers Weekly Big Indie Books of Fall 2023
Debutiful Best Debut Books of 2023
Ms. Magazine November 2023 Reads
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“Lee’s first novel is refreshingly out of sync with current trends…an engaging, quietly original take on what women must do to survive in 21st century small-town America.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This remarkable debut by Chin-Sun Lee centers on three women in ‘upcountry’ New York whose lives intertwine through unexpected and unsettling events…this isn’t the most uplifting book of the year, but it might be the most captivating.” —Ms. Magazine
“Upcountry is a novel of remarkable depth and insight into the human condition, and the ways in which luck, class, and circumstance shape individual’s destinies. Gripping, compassionate, and gorgeously written, Upcountry has the power to haunt.” —Kate Folk, author of Out There
“Upcountry is a stunning, innovative addition to Gothic novels that sustains its tension to the blistering, satisfying end. A terrific portrayal of small-town animosity, classicism, and alienation, Upcountry feels haunting and real — Chin-Sun Lee is a writer to watch.” —Chelsea G. Summers, author of A Certain Hunger
“Chin-Sun Lee’s distinct and memorable characters become representative of an American maelstrom of contemporary ills — drug abuse, income inequality, incarceration, climate change. Strange, searing, and powerfully written, Upcountry is a riveting debut.” —Helen Schulman, author of Lucky Dogs
An old house with a strange forcefield binds the fates of three women from vastly different socioeconomic backgrounds in Northern Gothic debut novel Upcountry:
Claire Pedersen and her husband have relocated from New York City to the Catskills after finding a terrific deal on a property in foreclosure. The house in Caliban has been in April Ives’ family for three generations, but the single mother of three has run out of money and is forced to sell. Despite mutual animosity, the two women continue to cross paths in the small town.
When Claire’s husband develops an erotic fascination with Anna, a young Korean member of the Eternals, a local religious community, two marriages — and one pregnancy — swiftly and dramatically end. In the aftermath, Claire is left to salvage the life she had imagined for herself in the country. April must contend with her ex, just released from prison, and his desire to be a part of their son’s life. And Anna, shunned by the Eternals since the incident with Claire’s husband, forges a friendship with April while struggling to make a place for herself outside of her insular faith.
Meanwhile, a creeping unease is growing inside the house that harbors painful memories and secrets for all three women. A local child’s drowning sets into motion a series of events that will bind their fates in tragic and redemptive ways. The significance (and mystery) of luck, fate, and resilience lies behind this portrait of lives connected by coincidence and catastrophe.