Liar, Dreamer, Thief

Katrina Kim keeps the world in balance with rituals: counting steps, tracing eleven-point stars on doorframes, and slipping into a private realm she calls the kitchen-door world. It’s the only way to quiet her fear that something bad is coming. Then she sees her coworker, Kurt, dive from a city bridge on a freezing night. No one believes her. The car is gone. The evidence is missing. The only proof left is a series of strange, handmade postcards—clues that lead into Kurt’s shadow life and straight to Katrina’s own front door. As her reality and fantasy bleed together, Katrina uncovers a lattice of surveillance, hidden messages, a decades-old crime, and a woman who wears two names. To save herself—and the parents she’s kept at a distance—she must follow a trail of secrets from Grand Station back to her hometown, where a single children’s book and a chain of betrayals reveal the truth. Liar, Dreamer, Thief is a propulsive mystery and a deeply human portrait of mental health, identity, and the ferocious love that pulls us back from the edge.

• Fans of literary thrillers with smart puzzles and emotional stakes
• Listeners interested in nuanced portrayals of mental health
• Readers who love mysteries that braid family, identity, and technology

Maria Dong’s short fiction, essays, and poetry appear in outlets such as Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, Lightspeed, Nightmare, Apex, Fantasy Magazine, and more. A former English teacher, occupational therapist, and property manager, she currently works as a computer programmer. She lives in southwest Michigan in a century‑old saltbox house and loves K‑dramas and Bell’s beer.