About the book

An eerie and unsettling gothic horror about the heady and hungry price of fame, drawing on Chinese mythology. Perfect for fans of Shirley Jackson and Cassandra Khaw.

Places like this have a history. Desires. And this one is famished.

Megan and her mom are on the run after narrowly escaping the clutches of an abusive man who dragged them from Portland to Beijing. With few options, Megan’s mom turns to an old friend who offers them room and board in Huihuang Opera Theater in exchange for cleaning the ancient building.

Between her rusty Mandarin and constant reminders that she’s an outsider, Megan struggles with loneliness—until she meets Kristy, the glamorous young lead in the operatic adaptation of “The Monkey King and the White Bone Demon.” Soon, Megan’s free time is split between reading a battered copy of the Chinese classic that inspired the opera and her budding new friendship; Kristy’s love of singing brings out Megan’s long-buried ambitions.

 But the opera house has its secrets. There are passages within the walls that shouldn’t be there, and the more Megan delves into that old book, the more the myths begin to bleed into real life. As Megan finds it increasingly difficult to separate reality from folklore, she must uncover a decades-old mystery to discover the true, horrifying secret of the opera house before it casts its hungry eyes on her.

From Demon Song’s announcement in Publishers Marketplace:

Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of BOUND FEET Kelsea Yu's DEMON SONG, a gothic horror novella about the heady and hungry price of fame, following a young girl and her mother who move to a Beijing opera house and discover a terrifying, demonic secret haunting its walls, to Daniel Carpenter at Titan Books, in a nice deal, for publication in September 2025, by Jennifer Azantian at Azantian Literary Agency (world English).

From The Bookseller’s ARTICLE ABOUT the Demon Song book deal:

Titan Books to publish 'beautifully uncanny' horror from Kelsea Yu

by Katie Fraser

Titan Books has acquired the rights to Demon Song, an "unsettling" gothic horror novella from Kelsea Yu, inspired by Chinese mythology. 

World English language rights were acquired by fiction editor Daniel Carpenter from Jennifer Azantian at the Azantian Literary Agency for publication in September 2025…

For full text, read the article here!