Cindy Pon Books in Order

Cindy Pon was born in Taipei, Taiwan, and moved with her family to the Los Angeles area in 1980, when she was six. Starting over in a new country shaped her early years, especially as she learned English as a second language. She later studied at the University of California, San Diego, and New York University.

Words came early. Before she felt fully at home in English, Pon was already trying poetry, then writing stories through her school years and teens.

Writing took a back seat during her twenties, while school, work, marriage, and everyday life filled the calendar. After she had children, she returned to it with more purpose. She took writing classes and set herself a big goal: finish a novel, not just scattered scenes and ideas.

That novel became Silver Phoenix, her 2009 debut. Pon combined a lifelong love of fantasy with a growing desire to learn more about Chinese culture and history. The result is a quest story centered on Ai Ling, a young woman whose unexpected powers pull her into danger, travel, and questions about who she is.

She continued Ai Ling's story in Fury of the Phoenix, then returned to the broader Kingdom of Xia with Serpentine and Sacrifice. Those books follow Skybright, a handmaid who learns she is part serpent demon. The series makes space for friendship, first love, family history, magic, and the awkward work of accepting a self that does not fit neatly into other people's expectations.

The settings matter.

Pon later shifted from mythic fantasy to near-future science fiction with Want and Ruse. In these novels, polluted Taipei and Shanghai are not just backdrops. They shape every choice made by teens living in a sharply divided world, where clean air, health, and safety are treated as things only wealthy people can afford.

Across her books, readers will find young people who are pushed to act before they feel ready. Pon writes about loyalty, class, identity, romance, and the pressure of family expectations, but she keeps the focus close to the characters. Her heroes worry, make mistakes, protect their friends, and keep going when the stakes get uncomfortably real.

Pon is also a longtime student of Chinese brush painting, another part of her creative life. She has said that painting and writing both let her tell stories. Beyond her own fiction, she cofounded Diversity in YA with Malinda Lo and has served on the advisory board of We Need Diverse Books.