Linda Cheng author page

Linda Cheng biography

Linda Cheng is a Taiwanese Canadian author of young adult horror and fantasy. She studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design, where she received a BFA, and subsequently worked as an art director in South Carolina and Georgia before becoming a published novelist.

Her debut novel, Gorgeous Gruesome Faces, was published by Roaring Brook Press in November 2023. The YA horror thriller follows former teen idol Sunny Lee as she enters a K-pop competition and investigates the circumstances surrounding the death of her former bandmate. The novel combines the pressures of the pop industry with supernatural horror and was selected as one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Young Adult Books of 2023.

Gorgeous Gruesome Faces was also nominated for the Ontario Library Association’s 2025 White Pine Award. Cheng returned to the same fictional world with Beautiful Brutal Bodies, a standalone companion novel published by Roaring Brook Press in November 2025. It follows singer-songwriter Tian and her childhood friend and bodyguard Liya as they confront supernatural events on a cursed island.

Beautiful Brutal Bodies was a finalist for the Horror Writers Association’s 2025 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Young Adult Novel. Cheng is also the author of the forthcoming middle-grade supernatural adventure The Gravedigger’s Apprentice, scheduled for publication in 2027.