Just one twelvemonth ago , Chloe Gong was a young writer about to liberate her first Christian Bible , These Violent Delights . A year later , the Chinese - born New Zealander is still young ( she ’ll turn 23 in December ) , but now she ’s a well - selling author , with the highly anticipatedOur Violent Ends — the subsequence to her breakout YA hit — arrive next calendar week . But we ’ve get even more news to share : Gong will be make her adult fiction debut in 2023 with Immortal Longings , the first in a unexampled larger-than-life fancy trilogy . io9 ’s got the soap , so keep reading !
First up , here ’s the prescribed annunciation about Immortal Longings , with some additional details about other Gong projects in the work :
“ place in the slow , pitiless twin cities of San - Er , which call back the historicKowloon Walled Cityof 1990s Hong Kong , Immortal Longings follows Calla Tuoleimi , a former princess who wants to remove her uncle , the Billie Jean King , from his throne . sure individuals in San - Er own the power to take over others ’ bodies , which is on full presentation at a deadly urban center - wide competition each class . Calla joins the game to take retribution on her uncle , who only ever appears to pride the achiever — and makes unstable alliance with both her cousin , August , and her furious competitor , exiled aristocrat Anton Makusa . But Calla is go from a dark-skinned past , and only one of them can take the air out of the games alive .
Author Chloe Gong in a rare non-writing moment.Image: Margaret K. McElderry Books
Gong is the generator of These Violent Delights ( McElderry , 2020 ) , which has spend 24 calendar week on the New York Times bestseller lean , and the forthcoming Our Violent Ends . ‘ I ’m massively excited to be join Saga Press , ’ says Gong , ‘ and to have a family for a whole trilogy of gritty Shakespearean worldbuilding plucked straight from my heart . ’ On stay with a Simon & Schuster imprint in the passage to grownup musical genre fiction , she read , ‘ I sense golden to get to put out these Word with so much support every pace of the way . ’
Amara Hoshijo , an editor in chief at Saga Press , preempted North American right to the serial from Laura Crockett at Triada US . Immortal Longings is scheduled for a Summer 2023 issue . It has also sold in the UK to Hodder & Stoughton and will be issue simultaneously as an audiobook in the U.S. by Simon & Schuster Audio .
Also approaching is Chloe Gong ’s next young adult duology following up her 24 - week New York Times bestselling phenomenon These Violent Delights ! get along fall 2022 , Foul Lady Fortune is a speculative historic noir ring the events of Imperial Japan ’s expansion into China in the 1930s . A familiar graphic symbol is inscribe as a home spy , maintaining her fictive identity by amaze as a young marital couple with someone who might be the very foe . ”
Chloe Gong poses with a copy of her best-selling 2020 debut, These Violent Delights.Image: Margaret K. McElderry Books
io9 chatted with Gong over electronic mail to get even more details on Immortal Longings , which you could read below .
Cheryl Eddy , io9 : Who are the main character in Immortal Longings , and what challenge and conflicts do they face in the news report ?
Chloe Gong : First , we ’ve got Calla Tuoleimi , the terrifying princess who kill her own parents and went into concealing before she could be punished for the treasonous crime . At the start of Immortal Longings , she ’s got a single - rails mind for one job and one task alone : killing her uncle — the king — to ultimately bring down San - Er ’s monarchy . To do this , she want to bring home the bacon the game that he puts on each yr because he wo n’t make a public visual aspect except to greet the victor .
Of of course , the write up starts getting messier when her cousin , August Shenzhi , the current crown prince , offers to meddle behind the scenes and help her win the games . But only if , after Calla kills the king , she place him on the stool rather . August require tycoon . Whether he ’s a honest friend or resister to Calla very much remain to be learn .
And finally , there ’s Anton Makusa , who is Calla ’s only real competition . Born as a palace noble and then pressure into deportation , he ’s represent in the plot for the pecuniary advantage , because someone he have sex needs it urgently . In his despair to acquire he nominate an bond with Calla , but that itself becomes his biggest conflict when the two of them become entangled as lover . After all , these games are a conflict to the end , and one will have to shoot down the other to acquire .
io9 : The book is inspire by Shakespeare ’s Antony and Cleopatra and the Kowloon Walled City . What made you require to explore this story in that exceptional mount ?
Gong : Immortal Longings is set in a fantasy metropolis very much prompt by the historical Kowloon Walled City in Hong Kong , which was torn down in the nineties ! The city was Chinese territory tuck inside British territorial dominion while Hong Kong was under British occupation , so Formosan law enforcement could n’t get in and British law enforcement did n’t care to get in . That was the basis for its egress as this lawless plaza unlike anywhere in the world ; it was fenced in so there was no elbow room to exposit outwards , it could only expand inwards and build atop itself . At the height of its activeness , it had the world ’s highest population density , but the civilians really made it work . These atmospheric condition were horrid come forth out of structural oppression , but the people were living , breathe being who still made a life out of these conditions , and I wanted to catch this juxtaposed energy and set a frantic floor in this frenzied mise en scene .
io9 : Immortal Longings is the first book in a trilogy . Have you already planned out the story through the three book ? Where in the writing process are you properly now ?
Gong : I went into Immortal Longings knowing how the trilogy would end ! But I like to take it one book at a time , so while I have n’t be after out the precise concatenation of case that will be happening in Book 2 and 3 , I do have sex the larger arc to check that that I ’m setting things up early and set all the foundation for what is to get along . At the moment , I ’m finishing up the edits on Immortal Longings , and very soon I ’m going to start plotting out its sequel !
io9 : What made you desire to change from YA to adult fantasy ? Were there certain challenges that come up with the genre chemise ?
Gong : My switching from YA to grownup fantasy came because of me aging up ! I only used to read YA when I was a young grownup — and YA was so large while I was its object hearing because it was going through its commercial boom in the 2010s . When I started write at 13 year old , it made signified that I would be creating part who were my years and also creating for an fanciful hearing of other teenagers because that was how I saw the world . When the idea for Immortal Longings came to me around third-year year of college , I was experiencing more of the world as an adult , get wind it for its refinement and dark side that I would n’t be concerned in as a younger teenager . The characters of Immortal Longings are between 21 to 25 , so it is very much me writing what I ’m concerned in and then finding the same audience who will react best to the means I ’m portray the world ! For me , the genre shift mean I involve to do a lot more industry research and understand other adult fancy to see what works since I ’m so much more familiar with YA . But I do think the line between YA and adult blend a little subject - smart , and once I had fructify my mind on the interview I wanted to reach , I spearheaded right toward it .
io9 : What ’s it been like for you in person , having found considerably - selling success at such a young age ?
io9 : What impact has TikTok had on your vocation and will you keep to use it going forward ?
Gong : I have a go at it TikTok . And I do n’t just say this because I ’m a Youth , I truly do do it TikTok and the way it ’s changed the room that word - of - back talk for books travel around . I feel so much bread and butter from BookTok at the start of my career when my debut had n’t release yet , and the backup has only grown from drug user who find me just because the algorithm recall they might be concerned in my subject . I ’ll decidedly be on it for a while because it ’s so easy to chaffer with readers and see what amazing video content they ’re creating for my books .
io9 : Will you be flummox in the adult land or will you be returning to YA at all in the future tense ?
Gong : I ’ll be doing both ! I do n’t think I ’ll ever leave YA because it was so instrumental to me as a reader growing up , and I ’ll always desire to be writing for the stripling that I was and the adolescent today who are searching for the types of books I drop a line . At the same time , I also have a lot of fun in the adult kingdom ( even though I still ca n’t consider I ’m technically an adult now ) , so I have unending idea for stories to uphold narrate .
Chloe Gong ’s Our Violent Ends , the sequel to her YA break These Violent Delights , will be released November 16 on Margaret K. McElderry Books . Immortal Longings , her adult debut , is amount from Saga Press in 2023 .
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