A Mouth Full of Fins: A Novel

From award-winning Korean horror sensation Cho Yeeun, an uncanny and profoundly moving tale about the beautiful obsessions and destructive delusions of love, and what it means to give a voice to the voiceless.

Something is strange about Seonhyung’s uncle’s death. All that’s left of him are bones: a skull, a ribcage, and a couple of teeth—each so pristinely white it almost seems as if someone has licked them clean. Seonhyung is still reeling from the loss of her band—and the betrayal of its heavenly-voiced lead singer, Gyeongju—when she returns home for the funeral. There, she’s confronted by a handwritten will that bequeaths to Seonhyung her uncle’s most prized possession: a dilapidated aquatic pet store.

On the surface, the store seems like nothing but a burden—one Seonhyung reluctantly agrees to take on. Then, searching for the source of the rotting stench in the air, she stumbles upon a trap door to a secret basement where she discovers tanks full of unimaginable horrors. Among them, near death but still unimaginably beautiful: a mermaid whose tongue has been cruelly carved from her mouth.

As she nurses the mermaid back to health, Seonhyung falls under the spell of her beguiling hum, until she can only think about one thing: hearing the mermaid sing. But there’s only one way to get the mermaid’s voice back: by satisfying her carnivorous appetite. Thrilling yet ethereal, A Mouth Full of Fins dares to tread the blurred line between our greatest dreams and our greatest nightmares.