Ela Lee

A young lawyer wakes up the morning after a work gala with no memory of how she got home the previous night and must figure out what, exactly, happened—and how much she's willing to put up with to make her way to the top of the corporate ladder. Jade isn’t even my real name. Jade began as my Starbucks name, because all children of immigrants have a Starbucks name. Jade has become everything she ever wanted to be. Successful lawyer. Dutiful daughter. Beloved girlfriend. Loyal friend. Until Jade wakes up the morning after a work event, naked and alone, with no idea how she got home. Caught between her parents who can’t understand, her boyfriend who feels betrayed, and her job that expects silence, the world Jade has constructed starts to crumble. Jade thought she was everything she ever wanted to be. But now she feels like nothing at all. For fans of Queenie and I May Destroy You, Jaded is a blistering—and sometimes darkly funny—account of consent, power, race, sexism, and identity in a broken society.

A Novel

Jaded

*A RADIO 2 WINTER BOOK CLUB PICK* 'A beautiful, tender story of displacement and loss which shows the resilience of the human spirit' Cecile Pin 'Deeply moving and graceful, it shines light on a secret slice of Korea’s history, gradually unveiling the secrets that bind – and divide – three generations' Silvia Park A sweeping story of three generations of women who cross continents and decades to find truth, forgiveness and compassion. Incheon, 1985. A nameless baby is born in a minbak in South Korea and vanishes nine days later. London, 2008. When tragedy strikes, Hana faces ruin. She is forced to move her family – her teenage daughter Ada and ailing mother Youngja – into a single room with her, converting the rest of their home into a minbak, in a painful echo of her past life. In the confined space of their shared room, there is nowhere to hide. As the past collides with the present, all three women are forced to face not only their family’s dark history, but that of an entire country. ‘Lyrical and devastating Minbak is a flawless meditation on memory, love and misunderstanding.’ Ella King ‘A poignant and precise novel by a writer of great skill’ Nicola Dinan ‘Had me utterly engrossed. An incredible story of love, conflict and heartbreak.’ Rosie Price Readers are LOVING Minbak: ’Tender, heart wrenching and honest’ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ’A masterpiece, a perfect exercise in empathy and survival’ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ’A quietly devastating novel about three generations of Korean women whose present is, in different ways, haunted by the past . . . Beautiful and bittersweet’ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ’Heartbreaking but utterly stunning’ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ’Stunning – at the core of it, it feels like it’s a book about choices, memory, and ultimately, love’ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ’All I can say is WOW!’ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

A moving, epic tale of family secrets, survival and an untold piece of South Korean history

Minbak

"A beautifully written and gorgeous novel." —Marjan Kamali, New York Times bestselling author of The Lion Women of Tehran Minbak (n.) a lodging in a private home Korea, 1985: Hana Park's future is bright. A star student and beloved daughter, she dreams of a life beyond working at her family's local minbak. After a devastating encounter with a foreign guest, Hana sheds her past and flees to London to capture the future she so desperately desires, leaving her heartbroken mother Youngja to pick up the pieces. London, 2008: When her husband dies unexpectedly in the midst of the global financial crisis, Hana is left with a pile of debt and no way to pay it off. With her teenage daughter Ada and a declining Youngja relying on her, she has no choice but to move her family into one bedroom and open the rest of their home to paying guests as a minbak. As tragedy brings the three women together, old tensions surface, and the family's long-hidden secrets threaten to erupt. With no one to turn to but each other, Hana, Youngja, and Ada must confront their complex history, crossing continents and generations to find truth, forgiveness, and compassion.

Ela Lee

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