I’m happy with the current pacing of the book, though I’m sad that I had to some cut of the more slice of life and steamy scenes 😛 The story and characters didn’t change that much, though. The first draft had some scenes that were a LOT darker, and I took my agent’s advice to downgrade it from R18 to 14+. Q: How has Iron Widow changed since that first draft?

I honestly still feel like I’ve merely uploaded a piece of fanfiction into a fandom! Having my whole publishing process happen virtually has made it feel very surreal. I definitely wished I could’ve traveled around and met other authors, but I’m grateful I was able to at least have an in-person signing event at my local bookstore. Never would I have expected that by the time the book came out almost two years later, the disease would be a pandemic still ravaging the planet. I got my book deal in January 2020, and while celebrating with friends, I was also talking with them about the “strange new disease” that was popping up in China and climbing in cases. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way-and stop more girls from being sacrificed. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily.

To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected-she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed.

When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain. The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. Pacific Rim meets The Handmaid’s Tale in this blend of Chinese history and mecha science fiction for YA readers.

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