Happy Wednesday, everyone! Today, I am
absolutely thrilled to welcome debut young adult author Angelica Cheng to
the blog for an author interview. She is stopping by to chat all about her
wonderful debut romance novel, The Fast Track.
Today, Angelica is giving us a peek into
what it’s like to be a debut author, sharing her favorite tips on writing
romance stories, and discussing why she chose F1 racing to play a major part in
this story. As a special treat for our readers, Angelica’s publisher is also
generously offering a free book giveaway to one lucky winner! Read on to
see our full conversation, and leave a comment below to enter the giveaway.
Here’s a blurb of The Fast Track from Goodreads:
An
ambitious racer who dreams of becoming the first female F1 champion finds her
plans going off track when she catches feelings for her biggest competition in
this dishy, delicious contemporary romance for fans of love, Lynn Painter, and
Lewis Hamilton.
Justine Kwong has always dreamed of becoming a
Formula 1 champion. There’s just one problem: no female driver has ever done it
before. So when she’s offered a coveted chance to race in Formula 3, she leaps
at the opportunity. Sure, half the fans think she’s just there to fill a
diversity quota, and her teammate—the infuriatingly cute Cameron Evans—mistakes
her for an intern, but Justine knows her talent will leave them all in the
dust.
But driving well isn’t the only prerequisite to
getting noticed, and Justine’s forced to fend for herself in a sea of
prejudice, paparazzi, and petty backstabbing. There’s a lot riding on her
ability to navigate the complicated trackside hierarchy—like the open F2 seat
that could be her ticket to the big leagues.
Except…when Justine and Cameron’s bickering
gives way to unexpected chemistry, the boy she’s falling for may be the one
person standing in the way of her dreams—because while they may be teammates,
they are also each other’s biggest competitor. And with her only shot at glory
on the line, this race could break more than just hearts.
We are also celebrating the Insecure
Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) post day.
Posting: The first Wednesday is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group Day.
Purpose: To
share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of
appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer
assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all
kinds!
The awesome co-hosts this month are: Kalpana,
Kim
Lajevardi, Rebecca Douglass, Jennifer Lane, and Cathrina
Constantine!
Optional Question: As a writer, do you have favorite themes that you like to
explore in your stories? If so, what are they?
I’m going to skip this question. As a blogger helping
writers, I’m always trying to find better ways to promote the authors I
feature, like Angelica Chang today. I’m not on TikTok or Bookstagram and don’t
want to be. The best ways I’ve found so far are to join the MMGM bloggers and this ISWG group, and join
in monthly blog hops. I’m wondering if I should join Instagram, but I don’t
have time to follow lots of people, which is why I don’t have a big following
on Bluesky.
Know
any middle grade or young adult blog groups or giveaway hops I can join? Do you
have any suggestions for helping writers I feature? Let me know in the
comments. But please, focus on Angelica and her fantastic book.
Interview
With Angelica Cheng
Hi
Angelica! Thanks so much for joining us.
1.
Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer.
Hello!
I’m so excited to be here. I used to read all of the agent profiles on Literary
Rambles so this is such a nice full circle moment, thank you for having me!
About
myself: I was born in Shanghai, and moved over to the US with my parents as a
child. Growing up, I fell in love with books via our local library. (It was a
great place to hang out—fun and safe—while my first-generation immigrant
parents were busy working or running errands.) By the time I was ten, I had
pretty much read my way through the entire children’s section and was often
scribbling stories of my own in notebooks or, not to totally date myself,
typing them up and saving them down on floppy disks.
All
that’s to say, I’ve been a writer almost my entire life, but it wasn’t until
2020 that I decided to make a concerted effort to write a full-length novel.
2. We
adopted my daughter from China when she was a baby. We spent our first day in
Shanghai. Where did you get the idea for The Fast Track?
I
got super into Formula 1 during COVID. I’d binged all available seasons of
Netflix’s Drive to Survive and it was one of the first sports to come
back from lockdown. As I watched, I started wondering why there were no female
F1 drivers currently on the grid, and that sent me down an entire rabbit hole
on the history of female F1 drivers (fun fact: they do exist, they are just far
and few in-between), which then turned into me wondering what it would look
like for a girl in today’s day and age coming up in this the racing world
trying to make it to F1.
At
the same time, the pandemic also motivated me to finally write a full-length
novel. Because of how much free time I had during lockdown, it felt very much
like a “If I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it” moment. As I was casting around
for fun story premises, my what if? questions about female drivers in F1
dovetailed nicely and the plot of The Fast Track pretty much wrote
itself from there.
Writing
Process
3.
Justine wants to become an F1 racer in a male-dominated world. What made you
decide to have racing play an important role in this story? What research did
you do on what it’s like to race and the behind-the-scenes world of racing?
I’ve
lost track of the amount of hours I’ve spent watching and listening to
behind-the-scenes F1 footage. Not just the fun social media videos the
different teams put out, but also podcasts and videos focusing on the
engineering, tire strategies, track technicalities, evolution of the sport, old
must-watch races, the list goes on and on. I even went to a local karting track
with friends to get a first-hand feel of what driving and racing would feel
like! Even though the kart I was driving only went up to 40 mph, it was so
endlessly thrilling—I understood instantly how kids can get hooked on racing at
such a young age.
4.
What was your writing process like for The Fast Track? How long did it
take you to write and edit your manuscript before you were ready to query?
If I
had to sum it up in one word: long. Draft 1 of The Fast Track was the
first time I’d written a full-length novel, and it absolutely showed. I then
spent two years nonstop revising that draft until I felt it was ready to query.
Spoiler
alert: it was not ready to query. A slew of rejections made me realize I had
more work to do. So I re-worked my draft again. I applied to mentorship
programs and was lucky to be selected for the Inclusive Romance Project (where
I met my mentor Jamie D’Amato) as well as Revise & Resubmit (where I was
selected by Joel Brigham). With Jamie and Joel’s help, I again re-worked my
manuscript. By the time I started querying again, I think I was on draft 12 or
13.
Luckily,
this time around all the hard work paid off, and I got to sign with my agent,
the fabulous Claire Friedman of Inkwell. All in, it took about five years from
when I wrote the first word of The Fast Track to when I signed with my
agent.
5. The
first time I wrote a novel, I knew nothing either and spent years revising it. This
is a romance, and, on your website, you describe yourself as a young adult and
romance author. Why do you love writing in this genre so much? What tips do you
have for writers to learn how to write a compelling romance?
I have
always LOVED reading romance. Even as a kid, my favorite parts of books would
be when the main characters developed crushes or got their first kiss. There’s
just something so evergreen and delightful about two people finding their way
to each other, not to mention that romance and love is pretty much woven into
our brain chemistry as a species (just think about how many love songs and
poems there are out there, and that these have existed since the start of
recorded history!)
My
biggest writing tip would be: write what you want to read. What are your
favorite premises? Tropes? What has you stressed out and worried for your
characters? What are scenes that made you howl with laughter? That made you
swoon? That made you despair and wonder how these two characters were ever
going to get it together and find their way to each other? Figure out what you
love and then write for that audience of one!
Journey
to Publication
6.
Claire Friedman is your agent. Share about your experience querying agents and
how she became your agent.
Oh
my gosh, are you really going to make me relive the nightmare?! (I’m kidding,
but only a little bit.)
As
mentioned, I queried in two main rounds that had almost two full-years
in-between them. Round one can best be described as “pie in the face”. I sent
out a handful of queries and didn’t get a single full request. My most
“successful” query resulted in one partial request that was swiftly rejected.
Luckily, that rejecting agent gave extremely valuable feedback about my pages,
and I dove back into revising.
Two
years, two mentors, and many, many drafts later, I finally felt ready to dive
back into querying. (I’m using “ready” loosely here, the reality was that I was
so sick of revising that it became a “Welp, I’m not revising again so might as
well query” decision.) This time around, all the hard work paid off and I had a
much better request rate and smoother querying experience. I was lucky enough
to wind up with multiple offering agents. I chose Claire not just because she’d
sold some of my favorite YA books, but also because she covered a huge breadth
of genres, including pretty much everything I thought I might ever want to
write.
7.
Your book was released on August 4, 2026. What has it been like being a debut
author both before and after your book was published? Is there anything you
would do differently?
The
feeling is very similar to getting married! Meaning, in the months leading up,
you are super busy, it’s a moment you’ve waited so long and thought so much
about. But then after the day/week passes, you realize you’re still very much
the same person at the core! For me, the most transformational part wasn’t
actually the release date, but it was when advanced copies went out and readers
started leaving reviews for my book. Up until then, the audience for my book
had been confined to a small circle of close friends, my agent, and my editors,
so it almost felt unreal to have actual people who didn’t know me, didn’t
interact with me, didn’t have any vested interest in me beyond the fact that
they thought the premise of the novel sounded interesting, reading my book and
interacting with it.
In
terms of what I’d do differently…I think it would be to stress out less and
take a step back and enjoy the process more! (This advice, I’m realizing as I
type, also would have applied to my wedding, ha.) In the lead-up, I let all
sorts of small things, some of them truly trivial, stress me out. I wish
instead of moving goal posts on myself, I had stopped and smelled the roses a
bit more, and savored the fact that I was getting to fulfill my childhood dream
of publishing a novel.
Book
Marketing
8.
How have you been promoting The Fast Track? What are your future
marketing plans?
I
will caveat this answer by admitting upfront that I am terrible at book
promotion and no one should be taking marketing advice from me. For The Fast
Track, I’ve mostly stuck to social media. I can’t say it’s my favorite
thing in the world, but it is so nice to have a platform and forum where you
can openly interact with your readers. In terms of future marketing plans, I’ll
still continue to post on social media and interact with readers there!
9.
When I was writing these interview questions in late September, I noticed that
you have 316 ratings and 159 reviews. That’s impressive! Did you or your
publisher do anything to encourage readers to rate your book and write reviews?
My
publisher, Simon & Schuster, posted advanced copies of the book on
NetGalley which was so helpful in getting early reader reviews. I did my part
by boosting and shouting about The Fast Track on social media, but if
I’m honest I’m not sure how much of a difference that made relative to the
efforts of my publisher!
10.
What are you working on now?
I’m
currently working on another YA romcom (also with Simon & Schuster!). Like The
Fast Track, it features high stakes and a messy and ambitious main
character. I
don’t know how much I’m allowed to disclose, so I’ll stop myself there!
Thanks
for sharing all your advice, Angelica. You can find Angelica at:
IG:
@byangelicacheng
TikTok:
@byangelicacheng
Substack:
substack.com/@byangelicacheng
🎉 ENTER LITERARY RAMBLES’ THE FAST TRACK GIVEAWAY! 🎉
Want to win The
Fast Track? Thanks to Angelica’s publisher for supplying a book
for this book giveaway contest.
How to Enter:
- Leave a Comment: Drop a comment below by November 14th with your email
address. To protect your privacy from spam bots, please write your email
address using the “name [at] gmail [dot] com” format. - Bluesky Bonus: If you follow me on Bluesky, mention your handle in your comment
for an extra entry! - Sharing Bonus: If you share about this contest on your own social media sites or
blog, let me know in the comments for an extra entry. - Author Bonus: If you follow Angelica on social
media, let me know in your comment for an extra entry! - Blog Follower Bonus: If you follow Literary Rambles via Blogger or email subscription,
let me know in the comments for an extra entry.
🌍 Eligibility: The book giveaway
is U.S. only.
Upcoming Interviews, Guest Posts, and Blog Hops
- Monday, November 9th: Interview
with Karen Foxlee and a giveaway of The Wonderous Tale of
Lavender Wolfe - Wednesday, November 11th: Agent
spotlight interview with Riley Jay Davis and a query critique giveaway - Monday, November 16th: Bobbi
Miller guest post and The Barnaby
Chronicles: The Lost Prince Giveaway - Monday, November 16th: In All Things Give Thanks Giveaway Hop
- Monday, November 23rd: Agent spotlight interview with Hannah Teachout and
a query critique giveaway - Monday, November 30th: Agent spotlight interview with Michaela Whatnall and a query critique giveaway
I hope to see you on
Monday!
