Amber Chen is a Singaporean Chinese author of SFF and contemporary fiction. She spends much of her free time living within Chinese fantasy novels and dramas, and also drinks one too many cups of bubble tea. One of her webnovels, The Cutting Edge, has been adapted for television. She is also the author of Of Jade and Dragons. You can find her on TikTok, Instagram, and X @AmberWrites88.

I had the opportunity to interview Amber, which you can read below.

First of all, welcome back to Geeks OUT! For those who might not be as familiar with you, could you tell us a little about yourself?

Hello! Great to be back! I’m Amber Chen, a Singaporean-Chinese author that writes SFF inspired by Chinese history and mythology. My debut YA fantasy, Of Jade and Dragons, was released in 2024 and hit the bestseller lists in the UK and Singapore, and its sequel, The Blood Phoenix, was just released in June 2025. I am a scientist by training, work in finance by day and write books by night, so I would consider myself a happily confused person       

What can you tell us about your latest book, The Blood Phoenix? 

The Blood Phoenix is the sequel to my debut YA silkpunk novel, Of Jade and Dragons, and continues the character arc of our protagonist, Ying. The story follows Ying two years after she leaves the capital and the Engineer’s Guild, when the aftermath of a horrific pirate attack by the mysterious Blood Phoenix fleet forces Ying back to the guild and to the friends and foes that she had left behind. Together with the new High Commander, Ye-yang, and her former friends in the guild, Ying must find a way to defeat the pirates that are terrorizing the straits, and the mastermind that is controlling them. 

The Blood Phoenix also introduces a second POV to the story—that of Ying’s younger sister, Nian. Nian, who now lives in the capital, finds company in her friendship with the fourteenth prince, Ye-kan, and discovers her unexpected affinity for governance and strategy. But the capital is more dangerous than she expects, and when a dark conspiracy arises, Nian and Ye-kan must unravel the mystery in time to prevent the High Command from collapsing from within.

At its heart, The Blood Phoenix continues the feminist narrative that began in Of Jade and Dragons, and revolves around the stories of several different women who are trying to live life by their own terms despite the difficulties of their circumstances.  

How would you describe your creative process? How was your writing process changed/ stayed the same since your debut?

I think my creative process has largely stayed the same. I still start with a skeletal outline and then dive straight into drafting the book and seeing where the characters take me. One thing that has changed a little is the introduction of the deadline constraint, because working on contract means I have a specific amount of time to churn my drafts and edits, compared to the unlimited time I used to have when I wasn’t on contract. There are pros and cons to this. The good part is that I find that drafting has become a more collaborative process, because my editor hops on board at an earlier stage and we get to trade ideas to make the story even stronger; the downside is that the pressure to finish writing on time is intense, and it sometimes feels like there’s little wriggle room for making mistakes or for making drastic changes to your book because there’s justno time! I need more than twenty-four hours in a day!   

Aside from your work, what are some things you would want readers to know about you?

Like Alice, I have fallen into a rabbit hole and it has led me to a wondrous place called Stardew Valley and I only wish I had discovered it sooner. Now I spend all my free time as a farmer in Stardew Valley beautifying my farm and slowly working my way toward perfection. If you are also a fellow Stardew Valley farmer—why did you not tell me about this game sooner? If you are not, then you’re missing out on the best cozy game there is out there. Also, if my books are delayed, it must be because I’m spending too much time on my farm.      

What’s a question you haven’t been asked yet but that you wish you were asked (as well as the answer to that question)?

One question would be: What are the historical Easter eggs hidden inside The Blood Phoenix? I’ve spoken a lot about the historical influences behind Of Jade and Dragons, and while The Blood Phoenix is a continuation of that and also draws from the founding years of the Qing dynasty in China, there is one particular historical anecdote that I love to talk about! In this sequel, one of our new antagonists, Li-na, the pirate captain of the notorious Blood Phoenix fleet, is actually inspired by the real historical figure Zheng Yi Sao, or Ching Shih, a woman who was a famous pirate leader from the Qing dynasty. She was married to a pirate, and after he died, she took over his fleet and commandeered a fleet of a whopping 40 to 50 thousand crew members! After she surrendered, she went on to run a prosperous gambling house and lived till a ripe old age, which sounds like a very successful life to me.     

What advice might you have to give for any aspiring writers out there?

One piece of advice I have is to try and shut out a lot of the noise that is out there in the publishing world. With the era of social media and people being online all the time, there’s plenty of folk offering advice and opinions about writing and publishing, setting rules about what can or cannot be done. Take all of it with a pinch of salt because what works for someone might not work for you, and most of the time the only thing the noise does is to whittle down your self-confidence and make you doubt your work. Find and keep a small group of like-minded writing friends and scroll away from all the other distractions online!    

Are there any other projects you are working on and at liberty to speak about?

My next YA fantasy duology will be launching in October 2026, beginning with Book 1, An Auction of Souls!This series continues my trend of smart female protagonists and revolves around a mercenary auction master whose life gets upended when a stranger shows up at her auction house wanting to sell a soul. Next thing she knows, her grandmother goes missing and ghosts descend upon her home, and she must now embark on an incredible quest with two Hell guardians to solve the mystery of the soul and hopefully restore the world back to the way it was. I’m very excited about this story and cannot wait to share it with everyone!     

Finally, what books/authors would you recommend to the readers of Geeks OUT?

A recent release that I’d highly recommend is When They Burned the Butterfly by Wen-yi Lee, a sapphic adult historical fantasy that features a fire-wielding girl gang in 1970s Singapore. I really love how Wen-yi has blended actual Singapore history with speculative elements to create a wholly original world with characters that will stay with you for a long time. 

For readers that enjoyed Of Jade and Dragons and The Blood Phoenix, I’d also recommend Deathly Fates by Tesia Tsai, a YA Chinese fantasy that is coming out in April 2026! It’s about a corpse-driving priestess that is tasked to retrieve the corpse of a missing prince but the prince turns out to be less dead than she expects.