We kind of went through an era in YA where female main characters could either be feminine or they could be strong - ditching the dresses for the knives - but I wanted Juliette to be both, where she was fierce and liked wearing pretty things and maybe wearing those pretty things also gave her a certain power to navigate her society. A thing that was really important to me, too, was that Juliette embraces her femininity whilst being powerful. I had grown up reading about the Celaena Sardothiens and Isabelle Lightwoods and I thought, you know, it’s high time we get a Chinese diaspora character in YA fantasy who fits into this archetype too. When I set out to create her I wanted to fully embrace the “overpowered” archetype: the girl who is going to stab anyone who upsets her… but still allow her to be flawed enough to be upset and messy and unreasonable.

I truly never would have been as drawn to Shanghai as I was and as I still am if it weren’t for my family’s stories! Juliette is so close to my heart. What sparked the idea to create her as your main character? And speaking of angsty heroines, Juliette is this fierce, protective total badass. I, too, love books filled with angst! It’s so interesting to hear that stories passed down from your family helped shape your own novels. I’ve always adored the Roaring '20s aesthetic, but there was something especially delicious about Shanghai at this time - the good, the bad, and the ugly where the streets were soaked in debauchery, but it was efforts of foreign colonialism that caused the sense of party in the city…so it was just a perfect setting for me to really sink into and explore! But I also wanted to see myself represented in the type of angsty heroines who got to star in those fantastical stories, so the immediate setting that came to mind for mine was 1920s Shanghai, since I had grown up hearing about this golden age era from the cool stories my parents pass on from *their* parents and relatives. I LOVE angst, and I had grown up reading angsty YA, and the stories that I was most obsessed with always involved love and hate and familial drama. I first got the idea for a Romeo and Juliet meets 1920s Shanghai story because I wanted to write about two families caught in a blood feud and the inherent tension that comes with trying to fight against that. SO excited for the questions, and I will try very hard not to typo all over the place or slip into my usual lower-case-everywhere habits.

These violent delights author