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Som Phin is a Cambodian-American author who writes emotionally rich fantasy, historical fiction, literary fiction, and romantasy centered on Khmer identity, history, mythology, memory, and love across time.
Her stories often explore Cambodian-American characters navigating the space between past and present, whether through time travel, reincarnation, ancestral memory, or the enduring influence of family history. Blending romance, history, spiritual traditions, and Cambodian folklore, her work explores themes of belonging, generational inheritance, healing, identity, and cultural connection.
Som is the author of more than 35 novels, including The Dancer’s Shadow, an isekai romantasy about a queer Cambodian-American transported to 1960s Cambodia. Kirkus Reviews called the novel “a beautiful and thought-provoking addition to the growing canon of diaspora literature.”
Her catalog also includes After Cambodia, There Was Us, a mother-daughter story spanning generations of survival and love, as well as multiple Cambodian-inspired fantasy and historical series, including The Naga Sisters Chronicles, The Lotus Between Worlds, and Threads of Jasmine.
Som was featured on Moments with Marianne on KMET 1490 AM & 98.1 FM, an ABC Talk News Radio affiliate, where she discussed The Dancer’s Shadow, Cambodian-American identity, and preserving Khmer history, folklore, and cultural heritage through fiction. Her writing and cultural storytelling have also been highlighted in national media, including a press release published on AP News.
Through her writing, Som seeks to honor Khmer voices—past and present—while creating compelling stories that introduce readers to the richness of Cambodian history, mythology, culture, and the diaspora experience.
Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
Emerald Spirit by Som Phin follows Sathea, an eighteen-year-old Berkeley student who falls asleep while playing a Cambodian-inspired fantasy game and wakes inside Srok Moreakot as the peacock spirit Peakea Thmey. The spirit realm is protected by a network of wards, but its eastern boundary is failing as Khmoch forces press toward the grove. Sathea discovers that dance forms let her read the root network powering those defenses, giving her knowledge the realm’s practitioners have lost. As the damage spreads, she begins tracing the source of the interference and learns that the failing wards are connected to an old severance that removed the Neayoktrey from the system built to protect Srok Moreakot. With the boundary weakening, Sathea must understand what was erased before the Khmoch can break through.
Som Phin’s Emerald Spirit is an imaginative Cambodian mythic isekai fantasy with exceptional world-building. The author gives Srok Moreakot a convincing history through customs that feel inseparable from the places its people inhabit, with the archive banyan proving this beautifully as ancient dances remain preserved inside living bark. The magic system is wonderfully inventive, built around movement as a spiritual language that places real physical demands on its practitioners, which becomes apparent when Sathea discovers that healing dance and war dance use the same form in opposite directions. Character work is excellent, with Sathea’s analytical wit meeting Chansereyvuth’s measured manner in training exchanges that gradually turn correction into familiarity. The best of the book's inspired creations? The Seventh Witness, speaking through the roots as ancient treaty memory becomes part of the living world. Readers who love queer fantasy grounded in Cambodian mythology are in for a treat with this heartfelt, original novel. Very highly recommended.
