Author Marie Lu takes a turn to pop stars and spies in new YA book ‘Stars and Smoke’

Bestselling author Marie Lu is famous for fantasy and science fiction young adult novels. Most known for her dystopian hit “Legend” series, she is also the author of “The Young Elites” series, the “Skyhunter” series and more.

Now, she’s venturing out with a YA enemies-to-lovers spy adventure, featuring Winter Young, an international pop sensation who is recruited by an elite spy agency to take down a major crime boss. Paired with the youngest spy at the organization, Sydney Cossette, the two travel to London in hopes of using Winter’s stardom as a cover for their mission.

Ahead of her April 3 Brookline Booksmith event, Lu spoke with GBH News about her latest novel, “ Stars and Smoke," which is out today, March 28. Excerpts from the interview are below, and you can hear the full interview.

Haley Lerner: What inspired you to write “Stars and Smoke”?

Marie Lu: “Stars and Smoke” is my pandemic book. I started it and conceived it in March of 2020 when everything was at its scariest and we didn't know anything was going on and we were sanitizing our vegetables and stuff.

I desperately needed an escape. I usually write science fiction and fantasy. “Stars and Smoke” is not that. I felt like I was in a science fiction movie already. And so I didn't feel like I could escape into science fiction. I needed to escape into something that felt like a fun, non-pandemic version of our world.

I came up with this idea of a boy named Winter who is a superstar tapped to become a secret agent. And he has to work with a fellow secret agent named Sydney who cannot stand him. But as their mission progresses and evolves, they quickly realize that the only people that they can count on are each other.

Lerner: As this was a change in genres for you, did you face any challenges making the shift, and how was it different from writing your other books?

Lu: I'm very used to being the master of the universe in my stories. "Legend" is set in Los Angeles — but it's a far-future Los Angeles, and a lot of my books are not set in the contemporary world. Even though there's challenges that come with that, I can also kind of make up the rules as I go. With this one ... it's got to be somewhat accurate to the real world.

There's a portion of this book that's set in London and I went to London around that time to do some book research for it. There's a scene that happens at the Victoria and Albert Museum. And the first draft of it makes absolutely no sense with the actual museum because that's based on research I had done online, I was like, "Oh, this must make sense." And then I actually went to the museum, and I was like, "Nope, gotta rewrite this entire chapter." So I remember wandering around the museum, staring at where the security cameras are. And I'm sure all the security guys were looking at me like, "Something's up with that girl."

Lerner: Who was your inspiration behind the pop star persona of Winter Young?

Lu: I wanted very much to make sure that Winter was a character that people could embody as whatever pop star they wanted to. I wanted to make sure that he was a character that came across as an uneasy celebrity. He's reached this pinnacle of his career and he doesn't know why he's there. He's very insecure with the amount of love that he's gotten in his past. He doesn't know how to matter without being famous. I wanted to capture that vulnerability in him because otherwise I find that he could have very easily been very unlikable.

I went to a lot of concerts that year just to get a sense for what kind of concert Winter would put on. I think BTS put on some of the best concerts I've ever seen. I went to a couple of other concerts — like Harry Styles, I think, is another one who would fit Winter's persona very well. So it was a lot of trying to put together a lot of pieces of our favorite pop stars to create him.

Lerner: When creating the character of Sydney, Winter’s partner on his spy mission and love interest, how did you write her as a foil to him?

Lu: I love that you said foil. I love making foils for my characters.

I've always had a really soft spot for prickly girls. Sydney does not care what anyone thinks of her, you know. She is in every way an opposite to Winter. She doesn't care for the spotlight. She's a spy — she really doesn't want it. She has no one to speak of in her life that she feels an attachment to. So she has no need to feel like she has to please anyone.

Winter finds this insufferable. He cannot understand why she's like this.

I love that clash between them. I think that Winter makes Sydney feel very uneasy. She's had a life where she has had no reason to trust people and has a tendency to think the worst of people when she first meets them. And so she's got all these walls up around her. And Winter is the only one who can kind of get through. And she doesn't understand why he can do that. And I love playing with that tension between them.

Lerner: Winter is a bisexual character. How do you think the young adult genre has changed in regards to inclusion and representation?

Lu: I first got published in 2011 and it was a very, very different publishing atmosphere than what we see today. I remember when I first came out, there was maybe one book I could think of that had queer representation in it. I remember when my first book, "Legend" was in The New York Times, it was literally all straight white authors on the list — and no one blinked, and no one thought twice of it. It’s been really remarkable to see that change year after year.

I think that we have a long way to go with representation. I think there is a danger in people thinking that diversity is a trend, that in order for a book to be classified as properly diverse, it needs to be selling pain. And I hope that we can move to a point where diversity is so included that we don't even need to think twice about mentioning it in a sentence. We can just say, "You're a science fiction author," "You're a fantasy author," and not — "an author of color" or "diverse author." I'm hoping we get to that point eventually.

Lerner: What further adventures can we expect to see Winter and Sydney go on?

Lu: I'm currently working on book two. Each book has its own separate mission, but the characters will stay the same and they will have their full arc throughout the series. But you don't have to read them in order. I can't say too much about what's happening in the second one, but there will definitely be more romantic tension between the two of them, as well as some of the other characters, and I very much intend to put them into ever-increasing stakes, especially with each other.

Marie Lu will be at Brookline Booksmith on April 3 at 6 p.m. in conversation with Katie Cotugno, along with a Q&A and book signing. More information can be found here.