My debut short story collection is out now from Small Beer Press! I am delighted to have collaborated with Gavin Grant and Kelly Link on this book.
It includes a few pieces that have never appeared online, and three original stories. I would love it if you ordered from your local indie bookstore!
From my publisher’s website:
“Am I dead?”
Mebuyen sighs. She was hoping the girl would not ask.
Spells and stories, urban legends and immigrant tales: the magic in Isabel Yap’s debut collection jumps right off the page, from the joy in “A Spell for Foolish Hearts” to the terrifying tension of the urban legend “Have You Heard the One About Anamaria Marquez.”
Available at these Retailers
Note: if you are based in Manila/PH, you can request a copy by emailing orders@fullybookedonline.com.
Reviews
“Yap’s impressive debut collection of 13 fabulist, sci-fi, and horror shorts explores themes ranging from monstrousness, shared trauma, and systemic violence to friendship and the ambiguity of love. Yap is at home with whatever topic she puts her hand to, easily immersing readers in the perspectives of high schoolers, ancient goddesses, androids, and witches…Yap is a powerful new voice in speculative fiction.” — Publishers Weekly
“These ambiguous, vivid, and dark tales manage deep characterizations despite their short formats.”
— Buzzfeed: 21 Fantasy Books To Get Excited About This Winter
“Yap’s gift lies in her ability to layer darkness and pain onto magic just weird enough; her characters face huge obstacles but are grounded in their tales, and glimmers of hope are always at the horizon.”
— Booklist (starred review)
“Vicious, vindicating, and visceral at once, Never Have I Ever balances compulsively readable humor with the good, transformative sort of devastation. This is a truly powerful, propulsive collection, exploring the makings and reshapings of myth, and the myriad ways we might save each other. […] Yap writes with an expert hand as she moves the reader through the looming horror and magic of what it is to be alive.”
— Maya Gittelman, Tor.com
“A wondrous and impressive collection from a gifted writer with a fresh voice.”
— Paula Guran, Locus
“With its combination of diverse characters, various geographies, nods to mythology and folklore, and different genre elements, Never Have I Ever is a wildly entertaining collection of touching, eerie stories that showcase Yap’s range.”
— Gabino Iglesias, Nightfire
“There are no bad stories in Never Have I Ever.”
— Allison Manley, Independent Book Review
“Never Have I Ever overflows with life and magic, and if you are not familiar with the vibrant literary scene in the Philippines, let this serve as a worthy introduction.”
— Washington Post
Advance Praise
“Never have I ever realized how much I’ve been waiting for this book. Full of magic and mystery, monsters, and miracles, everything a reader could need during these troubling times. I just wish I could read it for the first time all over again.”
— Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“I am full of admiration for Isabel Yap. Her dreams are authentic and her nightmares vivid and inventive.”
— Priya Sharma, author of All the Fabulous Beasts
“Never Have I Ever proves Yap the master of both the grand and the everyday. In each of these hard-hitting, incredibly assured stories, Yap shows how deft her hand is by sliding effortlessly from marriages and monsters (‘A Cup of Salt Tears’), to future anxiety and food in a near-future Manila (‘Milagroso’) to the uncertain future of grown-up magical girls (‘Hurricane Heels’); her ghost stories terrify as much as they comfort (‘Asphalt, River, Mother, Child’) and are so woven into the fabric of our real and human lives that their power to unsettle is unmatched; imagine if M.R. James had known the precise 1990s desire to own a Baby G . . . But where Yap consistently dazzles is her unsentimental, tender, evocative and brutal examination of the life and interiority of young women and girls: the innate monstrousness of growing up in the shoes marked ‘woman’. A masterclass collection.”
— Tamsyn Muir, author of Gideon the Ninth
“These stories of shy witches, beautiful elementals, bloody and watery monsters, miracles and tender-hearted machines, are written with color and crisp precision, and all their startling invention is firmly grounded in our own familiar and endlessly surprising world.”
— Elizabeth Knox, author of The Absolute Book
“Isabel Yap’s fiction channels the wary energy of meeting places: schools, hospitals, offices, hotels. In her work, the spaces of everyday life brim with weird vitality, crossed by ghosts, monsters, and above all, stories.”
— Sofia Samatar, author of Tender
“Biting, searing, exquisitely wrought, Never Have I Ever is a tour de force of dark fantasy. The cultural and mythological vectors driving these stories transform the reader as much as the book’s characters. Isabel Yap is a writer to watch.”
— Usman T. Malik, author of Midnight Doorways
“Isabel Yap’s prose is a constant delight and her characters are endlessly rich and fascinating. I’m in awe of her capacity for playful weirdness and mind-expanding terror. These gorgeous stories will help you to glimpse a world that is both stranger and more immense and varied than any you’ve visited before. My head is just full of images and feelings and ideas after reading these wondrous tales. Isabel Yap is a writer to watch out for, and you need to experience her brilliance for yourself.”
— Charlie Jane Anders, author of The City in the Middle of the Night
“The first time I read Isabel Yap’s work—she was in college at the time—it made me smile, it was so polished and assured. The next time I read a story of hers, it made me cry; it was so moving, yet nuanced. Over the years since, as this book proves, Yap has only gotten better, showcasing her impeccable yet seemingly effortless command of language, and a deft balance of emotional honesty and expert restraint. As one of her first editors, I’m filled with pride; as a fellow writer, with envy; and, as a reader, once again, with sorrow and delight.”
— Nikki Alfar, Palanca-award winning author of WonderLust
“Never Have I Ever is a stunning, lyrical debut by one of SFF’s brightest voices. Isabel Yap’s stories are luminous. Intimate and tender, hilarious and cruel, they cut straight to the bone. This collection is full of deft, painful portrayals of Filipino girlhood, queerness, and struggling to find a place in the world. They remind me of being in my lola’s house in Manila, listening to my titas and titos gossip over the breakfast table. Yap’s stories feel like coming home.”
— Alyssa Wong, award-winning author of Doctor Aphra
“Isabel Yap’s stories are somehow sharp and vivid and gritty at the same time as they’re timeless and mythic; I’ve been a shameless strung-out addict for years now, and I’m so excited to have this splendid overdose in my hands. And to watch as a whole new audience gets hooked on these stories drenched in heartache and salt water, folklore and monsters and gorgeous prose.”
— Sam J. Miller, Nebula-Award-winning author of Blackfish City
“Never Have I Ever is a showcase of Isabel Yap’s many enviable gifts: gorgeous prose, deep characterization, and exquisite ambiguity. Yap moves from humor to despair with easy confidence, plunging you down into the murkiest depths with the gentlest touch. You’ll get lost in these pages and each word will sit heavy in your chest. The best fiction does that.”
— Cadwell Turnbull, author of The Lesson
“The delight created by Yap’s stories rests in her deep understanding of what makes us all human, that irrepressible longing to ask, to understand, to explore, to strive, to hold on, and to let go. In her hands, worlds open up and words become transformative.”
– Dean Francis Alfar, author of Salamanca and editor of Philippine Speculative Fiction
Cover Information
Illustration “The Serpent’s Bride” © Alexa Sharpe