In Jessen’s Red String Theory (Forever, Jan.), an engineer and a sculptor debate fate vs. free will in life and love.

Tell me about your heroine.

Rooney is a string installation artist inspired by the “Red Thread of Fate,” which is a Chinese legend that two people are connected by a red thread. No matter the circumstance or situation, they will always eventually find one another. She believes in the red thread of fate so deeply that she embodies it in her work. I wanted to have her visualize her belief, and I thought that would be fun to do with string, especially on this massive scale.

What drew you to the legend?

I learned about the red thread of fate a couple of years ago, on the Lantern Festival. I just thought it was so romantic for two people to be connected by a red thread. I’ve always loved the idea of fate and soulmates, and so for there to be such a visual manifestation of this beautiful belief, I thought it could make an interesting story. I root my books in myths and elements of Chinese culture, and then I have to really figure out how to make those myths into something tangible.

Rooney’s love interest, Jack, is a systems operation engineer. What went into creating that character?

I wanted to set Jack up as an opposite to Rooney, but I also felt like because of his career path, Jack could work really well managing NASA’s artists in residency program. I did a lot of research on string theory, on NASA, on space. I read a lot of books about Mars, and I also spoke to systems engineers at NASA because I really wanted to make sure I captured the details, like the ice cream outside of Mission Control. I took virtual tours of NASA because I wrote this during Covid lockdown. I tried to really live it as much as I could to get a lot of the little details sprinkled throughout the book.

The other side of fate is free will. How did you reconcile the two?

Jack believes in choice. We make choices every day. That’s how we get from one place to another. For Jack, fate really isn’t part of that conversation, which is directly opposed to Rooney, who, while she doesn’t believe in fate for every single thing, really does believe in it when it comes to love and work. And so they create a hypothesis that fate can be operationalized and it can be tested. I think it was a natural talking point. When you talk about fate, you’re also talking about choice, especially when you have characters who have different beliefs. They’re learning from one another. They’re growing over the course of their time together. Ultimately, they land in that sweet spot of opening their mind up to something bigger. And maybe there is something bigger at play! But also, there is power in making choices.