Good girl, good student, good daughter: Aki has always done what her loving but demanding multiracial family expects. Far from her Vancouver home, she adjusts to life in London – studies, friends and a relationship with a wealthy but closeted Asian woman. Life is demanding, but Aki is coping until a violent incident triggers an unexpected response in the young Japanese-Latina woman.

About Emi Sasagawa

Emi Sasagawa is a settler, immigrant and queer woman of colour, living and writing on the traditional, ancestral and stolen territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh and Selilwitulh Nations. Emi is a graduate of TWS at Simon Fraser University, and is currently completing an MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia.

Atomweight (2023)

Sasagawa's debut novel Atomweight tells the story of Aki, a good girl from a loving but demanding multiracial family. When nineteen-year-old Aki throws her first punch, the respectable “good girl” discovers that brutal bar-fighting with random strangers relieves her stress, and she begins a dangerous dual existence – obedient and accommodating by day and brawling by night. But who is she trying to beat?

Atomweight is a powerful story about mixedness, queerness and power – about the need to reconcile competing cultures, traditions and values, oppression and privilege, and the ways we take up space in the world.

Sandra SG Wong (she/her) writes fiction across genres, including the cross-genre Lola Starke novels, Crescent City short stories, and the bestselling standalone thriller and Anthony Awards finalist, In the Dark We Forget. A speaker, mentor and hybrid author, Sandra founded and chairs the DEIJB Advisory Committee for Sisters in Crime, and is an active member of Crime Writers of Color. Connect with her via sgwong.com.