The Blue Hour
by Mabel Chou
On an Island shrouded in the Fog of Eternity, no one remembers their dreams-and no one has ever heard of history.
Then Moony finds a forbidden book. Its pages describe humanity’s wars and atrocities-a thing called the Second World War-but the final pages have been torn away. She will never know who won. Tucked inside is a note: They are coming.
When the Empire of Charn breaches the Fog, it brings the machinery of “civilization”: propaganda, slaughterhouses, and a new language to replace the Islanders’ own. Moony’s world is remade overnight. Yet caught between her dread of the invaders and the flutterings of first love, she discovers that stories and compassion may hold a power older than any empire-the power to rewrite the very script of existence.
The Blue Hour is a literary fantasy about the suffering we inherit, the stories we tell to survive, and the beauty that might yet save us.
The Blue Hour is a brilliant fantasy debut. It may evoke Ursula K. Le Guin or C. S. Lewis, but Mabel Chou’s “Edenburyd”—alongside echoes of Charn and the Phantasmagorium—creates a mythic world of its own, at once contemplative, layered, and rooted in Taiwan. Drawing on a wide range of literary and cultural references, from Shakespeare and Steinbeck to Eliot, the novel builds a dense intertextual landscape without losing its emotional clarity. I loved every page. Not only is it a page-turner, but it also made all my reading over the past sixty years seem worthwhile.
— Yu-hui Huang, Associate Professor of English and Applied Communication, Shih Hsin University
About the Author
Mabel Chou grew up in Taipei, with English and Taiwanese as her mother tongues. She studies Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Taiwan University. She is an advocate for animal rights. The Blue Hour is her debut novel.
ISBN: 978-1-913891-90-9
Publication date: 10 January 2027
Format: Paperback (Demy octavo) 216mm x 138mm
Pages: 496 pp
