Her debut novel, a thriller titled Yesterday, was the subject of a bidding war by publishers.
Her father refilled ATMs for a living and her mother was a clerk in a car repair shop.
In 2000 Yap began to study biochemistry at Imperial College London, after which she worked as a researcher at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg.
She then switched to studying history at the University of Cambridge, completing a master's degree at Sidney Sussex College[1] and a doctorate at St Catharine's College[2] on the subject of prisoners of the Japanese during the Second World War.
[4] Yap worked as a journalist in Singapore and the United Kingdom and has written for The Economist and The Business Times.