Press Release: Books News—The Witch Who Chases the Sun by Dawn Chen

Contrarian Publishing
Jun 30
2 min read

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PUB DATE: September 30, 2025

Effective immediately, Contrarian Publishing has acquired The Witch Who Chases the Sun by Dawn Chen for publication on September 30, 2025.

Chen originally planned to self-publish the novel.

Sometimes, true love is not the answer.

A decade after the Second War, Aixauhan Alchemist Ying Cai-Li seeks to rekindle her relationship with her ex-lover, the Inabrian Oracle Anne Barberry.

However, the war changed them both. Estranged by their losses, Cai-Li has gained a notorious reputation as the dark magic-wielding Blood Hawk and Anne barricades herself in a castle on a hill where her family’s dark secrets lie. Rumors in the village say Anne is a monster, responsible for the disappearance of innocent visitors.

But when the two witches reunite and begin unraveling the mysteries of the village, it becomes clear that scars left by the war do not easily fade. Things are not as they seem. Old ghosts come back to haunt them. Past truths are revealed. Can the witches be each other’s salvations or are they doomed to repeat the past that tore them apart?

Fans of The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang and The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon will fall in love with Dawn Chen’s sapphic high fantasy epic about anti-colonialism, grief, generational trauma, and the cycles of war.

The Witch Who Chases the Sun is available for preorder now. Links can be found at www.contrarianpublishing.com/twwcts

FOR FANS OF:

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Strike the Zither by Joan He

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dawn Chen is a sapphic fantasy and horror author who grew up in Beijing, China. When she was thirteen, she moved to Germany to live with her family. Since then, she has both lived in Canada and UK. She writes in both Chinese and English, wishing nothing more than to keep writing, and has a perfectly healthy obsession with ghosts. She's the author of the Chinese queer diaspora horror short story collection Dawn's Cozy Horror Corner, the Chinese-inspired anti-British colonial sapphic fantasy The Witch Who Chases the Sun (Contrarian Publishing, October 2025), and the upcoming sapphic vampire epistolary horror novel A Vampire in Beijing (Graveside Press, January 2026).