Finding Jade

Author's Letter

My name is Jasmine Guzman. My mother is dying a slow, painful death, and my sister, Jade, was abducted when we were ten years old. Soon I will be an orphan. P.S.: My sister's body was never found.

Jade Guzman, age 14. Toronto, Canada, 2030.

Dear Wattpad Readers,

Welcome to the first installment in the Daughters of Light series. I'm really excited to introduce you to Jade and Jasmine Guzman. They're two uber-resilient, strong, young women, who just happen to have the responsibility of fighting demons, climate change, and corrupt politicians. Oh, and they are going to be instrumental in saving the human race. But, let's save that for a bit later...

Finding Jade opens with our protagonist, fourteen-year-old Jasmine Guzman, dealing with more than a few challenges, including: being forced to attend a high school where she knows no one, and a bully named Mina who seems to have it out for her for no reason. She also struggles with intense feelings of guilt around the abduction of her twin sister, Jade, which happened five years ago, and her mother's progressively worsening lupus.

Things get strange when Jasmine learns, via an odd, but strikingly hot boy at school, named Raphael, that her sister, Jade, is actually stuck in the Place-in-Between, and that both she and her sister have powers that make them part of a special group of identical twin girls known as Seers. It's up to Jasmine, along with Raphael and a couple of her fellow Seers, to venture into the Place-in-Between to rescue Jade. Thing is, they'll have to navigate their way through plague-ridden London, more than a few lost souls, and some hungry demons in order to be successful.

Though Finding Jade is set less than fifteen years in the future, the world in 2030 is a different place in many ways than ours right now. Climate change has destroyed parts of the world, triggering a mass migration of people from places where drought, natural disasters, and global warming have rendered their countries uninhabitable. Some nations, including Canada, are debating whether or not to close their borders to all climate change refugees. Or is it really that different? As I sit here, writing this to you at a cafe in sunny, drought-stricken Southern California, reading about the desperate journeys of so many Syrians, I begin to see just how thin the line between fiction and reality can get. However, I truly believe that heroes don't need superpowers to change our world for the better and to show compassion for those in need. We can all be 'Seers' in our own way.

I look forward to your feedback and thoughts. The second installment in the series, Solomon's Ring, will be available in bookstores in early 2018. 

Most of all, thanks for reading Finding Jade. I hope you enjoy it.

About Me

I've been writing most of my life. After a brief foray into the professional acting world whilst I was living in London, England, I returned to writing and moved myself to Toronto, Canada. I'm a Special Education teacher as well as a YA writer. In the very little spare time I have, I can usually be found at the gym, out with friends, or attempting to surf in Southern California.