Migration, Memory, Identity: An Overview and Interview of Sherry Thomas's Writing

Abstract

Sherry Thomas began publishing novels in 2008, with initial works set in Victorian England, typical of this sub-genre of romance fiction. She continued writing young adult fantasy and adult romance novels. It included a bi-racial heroine, who shared some of Thomas’s own Chinese heritage, and were partly set in Ch’ing-era China. She then launched the gender-flipped Lady Sherlock series with Berkley in 2016, which has a “slow-burn” romance plot but focuses on the mystery element, and published a contemporary mystery and a futuristic fantasy in 2025. The interview conversation records her experiences with publishing in a white-centering space and whether she has consciously negotiated with the dominant narratives it has cultivated. It is a portrait of a Chinese American romance author whose knowledge of Chinese web novels and Chinese literature reoriented the genre’s representation of love and history for readers like me, a non-white romance reader and scholar.