First published 2018
Park Minwoo sits in his corner office overlooking the Seoul he helped transform. The architectural firm director has climbed from childhood poverty to professional triumph, riding decades of rapid modernization. Then corruption investigators arrive at his company. As Minwoo faces questions about his business practices, a letter arrives from Cha Soona, a woman he once loved and abandoned. Her unexpected contact pulls him back to memories he buried long ago. The investigation forces him to examine his role in reshaping Korea. Soona's message makes him confront the personal costs of his ambition. Minwoo begins to see that his success required destroying the world he came from. The old neighborhoods are gone. The relationships he sacrificed seem irreplaceable. As evening settles over the city, he must decide what matters when everything he built starts crumbling.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, social-issues, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: redemption, second-chance
Setting: Seoul, Korea
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
192 pages · Paperback · Scribe Publications