Want began as a short story I wrote in 2011 titled “Blue Skies.” It was the first non-fantasy story I had written since I was a young adult myself and also my first told as a first-person narrative. Zhou intrigued me from the start and so did Daiyu. Beyond the two characters, I wanted to feature Taipei, my birth city, and bring it to life for my readers. I love Taiwan so much and am so thrilled that Want is one of the first YA books to be set there. I was both excited and terrified when I decided to expand the short story into a novel and got to know Zhou and Daiyu even better, while creating supporting characters who were just as interesting to me.

My eternal gratitude to Michael Strother, who acquired Want. He saw Jason Zhou exactly as I wanted to portray him and pushed me to take the story to an even higher level. Michael is the main reason this gorgeous cover features my Asian hero’s face so prominently, something we very rarely see on young-adult bookshelves. Thank you for believing in me and this story! I am beyond lucky to have Jen Ung as my editor for the latter revisions on Want. Thank you for asking those questions about my characters and relationships so I could delve deeper. Your support and enthusiasm have been invaluable to me!

This book benefited very much from my beta readers’ feedback. Hugs to these fabulous friends and amazing women writers who took the time: Leah Cypess, Deva Fagen, Malinda Lo, and Sarah Rees Brennan. Special thanks to Malinda, whose feedback was especially helpful to me, and to Sarah, who has provided excellent comments and suggestions for my last three published titles!

My critique group, as ever, did the heavy lifting for this manuscript: John Atcheson, Kirsten Kinney, Amy Mair, and Mark McDonough. Thank you especially for John’s expertise and input on the manuscript and Amy for lending new eyes to the story.

Thank you to my dear friends Joseph C. Chen (so dear I named a character after him in the book and then infected him with the virus I kept asking questions about, ha!) and Dr. Marcus Doane, who were both troupers in fielding this layperson’s questions on viruses and more. Love to my own m for answering computer- and security-related questions.

I used my fabulous librarian friend Lalitha Nataraj’s surname to give to Arun and his mother. Thank you for all the support and adventures in these past years. I’m so glad you mistook me as a fellow librarian so many years ago and introduced yourself.

Jason Chan is an incredible artist and seriously nailed it with his cover art. I feel so lucky! And thank you to both Karina Granda and Regina Flath who helped with the jacket design. I could not have asked for a more stunning cover!