Blood Heir

Dear Readers:

I'm glad to announce that Blood Heir will publish on November 19, 2019.

In writing this novel, I researched extensively on the subject of modern-day human trafficking and indentured labor throughout the world and specifically from my heritage. It is a practice that thrives on societal complicity and complacency, and it is my hope that Blood Heir will confront the silence surrounding this epidemic that continues to affect 45 million victims globally.

Through important dialogue that occurred recently, it became clear to me that my book was being read in a different cultural context than my own, so I decided to take the time to make sure the hallmarks of human trafficking were being incisively drawn.

I hope to share a new perspective from my background as a Chinese immigrant living in America. I am excited for readers to meet my heroine, who believes in justice and is ready to fight for it with her wits, grit, and magic; and for them to have a chance to engage in further dialogue about these important social issues.

Thank you for your support.
Sincerely,
Amélie

To the online mob, I say, and encourage Amélie Wen Zhao to say, as did the Duke of Wellington in response to a threat to expose his extramarital affair, “Publish and be damned.”

To the book community,

I want to start by saying that I have the utmost respect for your voices, and I am listening l am grateful to those who have raised questions around representation, coding, and themes in my book.

I emigrated from China when I was 18. Drawing on my own multicultural upbringing and the complex history of my heritage that has incidences of bias and oppression, I wrote Blood Heir from my immediate cultural perspective. The issues around Affinite indenturement in the story represent a specific critique of the epidemic of indentured labor and human trafficking prevalent in many industries across Asia, including in my owrn home country. The narrative and history of slavery in the United States is not something I cultural context. I am so sorry for the pain this has caused.

It was never my intention to bring harm to any reader of this valued community particularly those for whom I seek to write and empower. As such, I have decided to ask my publisher not to publish Blood Heir at this time, and they have agreed. I don't wish to clarify, defend, or have anyone defend me. This is not that; this is an apology.

With the feedback of the community, I feel this is the right decision.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Amélie

I am an immigrant. I am a woman of color. And I am an “Other.” In my time in the United States, I have never experienced the sense of crushing fear about my identity that I have recently. “Get out of my country, communist!” is only one of the slurs I’ve had screamed at me from across the street. What I’ve experienced personally and seen across social media outlets and national television broadcasts has all amounted to a hyperawareness of my foreignness, my Otherness, and the possibility that because I am different, I am not worthy of belonging.

Blood Heir explores the demonization of the Other and this experience of not belonging. Ana’s journey examines how one can internalize hatred and fear, how that can warp one’s core and turn it into something cruel and twisted. But ultimately, her story is one of self-acceptance, and of the realization that we cannot change who we are nor what we are born with, but we can choose what we do with what we are given. And like me, Ana chooses to fight for a better tomorrow.

So I gave magic to my girls who were told they were monsters. I gave my children of color the ability to fight oppression. Because in a world where there is so little I can control, I want to put hope and power in their hands for once—and in a world where those deemed “different” are often cast out and made to be monsters, I want them to win.