Published by: Roaring Brook Press

Publication date: May 4th 2021

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Young Adult

Perfect for fans of Rick Yancey and Marie Lu, The Ones We’re Meant to Find is a sci-fi fantasy with mind-blowing twists, ready to burst onto the YA scene, from the critically-acclaimed Descendant of the Crane author, Joan He.

Cee awoke on an abandoned island three years ago. With no idea of how she was marooned, she only has a rickety house, an old android, and a single memory: she has a sister, and Cee needs to find her.

STEM prodigy Kasey wants escape from the science and home she once trusted. The Metropolis—Earth’s last unpolluted place—is meant to be sanctuary for those committed to planetary protection, but it’s populated by people willing to do anything for refuge, even lie. Now, she’ll have to decide if she’s ready to use science to help humanity, even though it failed the people who mattered most.

THE ONES WE’RE MEANT TO FIND is a scifi-fantasy about two sisters, Cee and Kasey. Cee has been stuck on an abandoned island for just over three years. Kasey is stuck too; it’s been three months since her sister went missing from their home, a technologically advanced floating city that protects its populace from a polluted, climate-change wrecked outside world. Of the pair, Cee is much more of a social butterfly whereas Kasey is introverted and makes decisions based off of logic rather than emotions.

🌊 🚣‍♀️ 🌎 🧪️🤯 💔 ⏳ 🛁

The initial idea came to me in a dream: I had a very vivid image of a girl diving to the bottom of a sea, in search of something or someone. As I tried to figure out the “what”, my mind went back to the books I was reading as a teen. Some of my favorites at the time were YA Dystopias such as The Hunger Games and Legend. They left a deep impression on me, particularly in how they signalled the relatability of their main characters. A single scene with a younger sibling, for example, could frame a protagonist as human and vulnerable before they went on to topple dictatorships or save the world. I wanted to subvert that. What if, I wondered, the girl in my dream is searching for her younger sister, but that sister is more than a storytelling device? And so came the heart of the story.

This is hard! I listened to a lot of music while writing this book, including many instrumental tracks and some songs in Chinese. A song with English lyrics that encapsulates the book would be THE NIGHT WE MET by Lord Huron.

I have to pick the obvious here: the beach (not a tropical one), with a tumbler of hot tea.

If you love twists and questions of mortality, I’d recommend:

The hardest part of writing any book, but especially a second book, is silencing the noise. You always have your inner critic that will give you a hard time, but with each book, you also start hearing the voices of readers, your publisher, etc. The fear of disappointing people mounts. But to write, you really have to filter all of that out.

I just turned in a book that’s code named “mountain book” (TOWMTF was called “ocean book”). I’d also love to get back into Chinese fantasy sometime soon J

Joan was born and raised in Philadelphia but still will, on occasion, lose her way. At a young age, she received classical instruction in oil painting before discovering that stories were her favorite kind of art. She studied psychology and Chinese history at the University of Pennsylvania and currently writes from a desk overlooking the city

waterfront. Descendant of the Crane is her young adult debut.

For updates, please sign up for her newsletter: http://eepurl.com/c5rvdL. For business related inquiries, please contact her literary agent, John Cusick of Folio Lit.