AudioBook information:
Author: Yu-Mei Balasingamchow
Narrated by: Mirai
Release date: June 23, 2026
Audiobook Duration: 9 h 56 min
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Summary: **One of Debutiful‘s Most Anticipated Debut Books of 2026**
**One of E! News‘s Books to Read This Summer**
**One of Marie Claire’s Best Mystery-Thriller Books of 2026**
**One of BookRiot’s Best Mysteries and Thrillers for True Crime Podcast Listeners**
Catch Me If You Can meets Counterfeit in this thrilling debut novel about Ophir—not her real name—who starts a confessional podcast about her years on the run around the globe, in an unforgettable story about the costs of freedom and the inescapable pull of home
Ophir’s tale begins in Singapore, where a petty crime spins out of control, estranging her from home and family. Resorting to false identities and forged passports (being mixed-race helps), she crisscrosses the globe from a Paris-themed hostess bar in Tokyo, to a bustling Chinese restaurant in London, to a snowbound mountain town in Colorado and beyond.
Broadcasting from an undisclosed location, Ophir is funny, prickly, tough, and vulnerable, entrancing her listeners with an irresistible, no-holds-barred recounting of not only her crimes (plural) but also her deepest secrets and regrets. Even as she moves seamlessly across class lines and continents, she grapples with the shock of relentless dislocation, a painful reexamination of identity, and a deep yearning for home. She tries to find comfort in new lovers and ill-gotten luxury goods, but she can’t help attracting trouble, and she soon faces an unexpected, high-stakes choice that could change her fate forever.
Names Have Been Changed is a stylish, fast-paced debut novel that reveals the complicated paths we take to build a life and a home. Filled with danger and twists, it’s ultimately a story about immigration and belonging—one unlike any you’ve seen before.
About the author:
Yu-Mei Balasingamchow is the author of the novel, Names Have Been Changed, which will be published on June 23, 2026 by Tiny Reparations Books. Her short fiction has received a Pushcart Prize Special Mention, won the Mississippi Review Fiction Prize, and been shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize.
Yu-Mei is also the co-author of Singapore: A Biography, editor of How We Live Now: Stories of Daily Living, and co-editor of In Transit: An Anthology from Singapore on Airports and Air Travel. She has an MFA in Creative Writing from Boston University. Her writing has been supported by Ucross Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Elizabeth George Foundation, Sewanee Writers Conference, Ragdale Foundation and Vermont Studio Center, and in Singapore by the National Arts Council and Nanyang Technological University.
Originally from Singapore, Yu-Mei now lives in Boston. She is editor at Gaudy Boy, an independent press that brings literary works by authors of Asian heritage to an American audience, and teaches at GrubStreet.