Y S Lee

Author of Young Adult, Historical and Mystery Novels

  • Novels
    • A Spy in the House
      • Excerpt: A Spy in the House
      • Deleted scene: A Spy in the House
    • The Body at the Tower
      • Excerpt: The Body at the Tower
      • Deleted scene: The Body at the Tower
    • The Traitor in the Tunnel
      • Excerpt: The Traitor in the Tunnel
      • Deleted scene: The Traitor in the Tunnel
    • Rivals in the City
      • Excerpt: Rivals in the City
      • Deleted scene: Rivals in the City
  • Short Stories
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“pungently hostile”

February 24, 2016 By Ying 3 Comments

“pungently hostile”

Friends, I have a dilemma. I'm currently reading Christopher Hale's Massacre in Malaya: Exposing Britain's My Lai as part of the research towards Monsoon Season. It's a very compelling book. I haven't yet got to the part about the Batang Kali Massacre (to which the title refers) but my inter-library loan copy is already feathered with post-it notes. I am very keen to see how his argument … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Things I Read Tagged With: Batang Kali Massacre, Christopher Hale, colonialism, empire, Madam Cheng Seang Ho, Malaya, research, The Next Book, Things I Read

On re-reading

July 8, 2015 By Ying Leave a Comment

On re-reading

Hello, friends. One morning last week, as I was still waking up, I had a moment of intense clarity about my work-in-progress: its shape is wrong. I need to restructure the first third of the novel. As I'm less than halfway through a first draft, I did not welcome this insight. Indeed, I spent a couple of days squinting at the corpus-thus-far-assembled, giving it a poke here and a jab there, as … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Things I Read Tagged With: Freddy Spencer Chapman, historical fiction, Malaya, Monsoon Season, Paul Scott, reading, research, Second World War, The History Girls, The Next Book, Things I Read, writing process

A(nother) fresh start

November 19, 2014 By Ying 14 Comments

A(nother) fresh start

Hello, friends. It's been a while since I talked about my work-in-progress, and that's no accident. I have been tussling with Monsoon Season, aka the Next Book, for ages now. I'm almost ashamed to say how long, but there's no point in being coy: I first started it about 18 months ago. Then I scrapped what I had, and re-started it. Then I junked the second version and began afresh. And guess what? … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Things I Write Tagged With: Malaya, Malaysia, Monsoon Season, Pacific War, Second World War, The Next Book, Things I Write, Writing

Nostalgia and serendipity

May 7, 2014 By Ying 2 Comments

Nostalgia and serendipity

Hello, friends. I spent yesterday morning very happily shuttling around libraries. The first was Stauffer Library, the humanities and social sciences library at the university where I did my PhD. You could say I know my way around it. For a few years, it was as familiar to me as my own apartment. I had the positions of the stacks memorized; I knew which photocopiers worked best; I was on … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Things I Write Tagged With: libraries, Mamoru Shinozaki, nostalgia, research, serendipity, Singapore, Stauffer Library, Syonan, The Next Book

Code Name: Verity

April 30, 2014 By Ying 5 Comments

Code Name: Verity

So, Code Name: Verity. It was first published in 2012. It was shortlisted for both the Printz Award and the Carnegie Medal, so it's not as though I'm drawing attention to unsung heroines, here. But I finally made time to read Elizabeth Wein's novel last week and when I'd finally finished sobbing, all I could wonder is why I'd let it languish for two years. As you may already know, Code Name: … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Things I Read Tagged With: Elizabeth Wein, historical fiction, The Next Book, Things I Read, Writing, WWII

What is a novel?

November 20, 2013 By Ying 3 Comments

Hello, friends. I recently had a long and utterly engaging conversation with three fellow writers: two of them critically acclaimed poets, all of us writers of novels. We were talking about the act of writing. One of us, who is working on her first novel, said that for her, writing it was like posing the question, "What is a novel?" That is, what are the novelistic conventions I value? Is it true … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Things I Write Tagged With: A Spy in the House, musings, Rivals in the City, The Body at the Tower, The Next Book, The Traitor and the Tunnel, Writing

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