Samantha Sotto Yambao is a Filipina author of speculative fiction, magical realism, and contemporary fantasy novels. She is the author of Before Ever After, Love and Gravity, A Dream of Trees, The Beginning of Always, Water Moon, and The Elsewhere Express. She is a Sunday Times, USA Today, Indie List, and New York Times bestselling writer based in Manila, where she lives with her family.

Samantha Sotto Yambao made her debut as a novelist in 2011 with Before Ever After. Below is a list of Samantha Sotto Yambao’s books in order of when they were originally released:

• Kalayna Price
• Christina Henry
• Genevieve Cogman

Samantha Sotto Yambao Synopses: In The Elsewhere Express, a magical train appears only to those who have lost their sense of direction. It carries no tickets and follows no schedule, offering its passengers something rare: a chance to rediscover purpose, peace, and belonging. Raya is one of those adrift. She once dreamed of becoming a songwriter, but after her brother’s death she abandoned her own ambitions and began living the life he never got to have.

One day, while riding the subway and letting her thoughts drift, Raya is swept onto the Elsewhere Express. There she meets Q, an artist who has also slipped out of place in the world. Together they explore a train filled with wonders, from a boarding car that opens into a meadow to a dining car where passengers picnic on lily pads to a bar where jellyfish and whales drift through pink clouds. The Elsewhere Express is beautiful, strange, and full of secrets.

As their long night unfolds, Raya and Q discover that a dangerous stowaway has brought dark magic aboard, threatening the train itself. Investigating his identity forces Raya to confront the question she has avoided for years: what is her true purpose, and is it a destination the Elsewhere Express can carry her toward?

In Water Moon by Samantha Sotto Yambao, a hidden pawnshop sits on a backstreet in Tokyo, visible only to those who have lost their way. Most people pass by and see a cozy ramen restaurant, but the chosen few—those carrying regrets they can no longer bear—find a place where life choices can be pawned and burdens briefly set aside.

Hana Ishikawa wakes on her first morning as the shop’s new owner to discover chaos: the pawnshop has been ransacked, its most valuable item stolen, and her father has vanished. Before she can make sense of what happened, a stranger stumbles through the door. Unlike the shop’s usual customers, he isn’t there to pawn anything—he’s there to help.

Together, Hana and her unexpected companion travel through a mystical world connected to the pawnshop’s magic. Their search leads them through rain puddles that open into other realms, across paper cranes that carry them through the sky, over the bridge between midnight and morning, and into a night market suspended among the clouds. Each step brings them closer to Hana’s father and the stolen choice that set everything in motion.

But as the truth comes into focus, Hana must confront a secret she has kept even from herself—and make a decision that cannot be undone.