by Angie Kim
Winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel
A Time Best Mystery and Thriller Book of All Time
The "gripping... page-turner" (Time) hitting all the best of summer reading lists, Miracle Creek is perfect for book clubs and fans of Liane Moriarty and Celeste Ng
How far will you go to protect your family? Will you keep their secrets? Ignore their lies?
In a small town in Virginia, a group of people know each other because they're part of a special treatment center, a hyperbaric chamber that may cure a range of conditions from infertility to autism. But then the chamber explodes, two people die, and it's clear the explosion wasn't an accident.
A powerful showdown unfolds as the story moves across characters who are all maybe keeping secrets, hiding betrayals. Chapter by chapter, we shift alliances and gather evidence: Was it the careless mother of a patient? Was it the owners, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their daughter to college? Could it have been a protester, trying to prove the treatment isn't safe?
"A stunning debut about parents, children and the unwavering hope of a better life, even when all hope seems lost" (Washington Post), Miracle Creek uncovers the worst prejudice and best intentions, tense rivalries and the challenges of parenting a child with special needs. It's "a quick-paced murder mystery that plumbs the power and perils of community" (O Magazine) as it carefully pieces together the tense atmosphere of a courtroom drama and the complexities of life as an immigrant family. Drawing on the author's own experiences as a Korean-American, former trial lawyer, and mother of a "miracle submarine" patient, this is a novel steeped in suspense and igniting discussion.
Recommended by Erin Morgenstern, Jean Kwok, Jennifer Weiner, Scott Turow, Laura Lippman, and more—Miracle Creek is a brave, moving debut from an unforgettable new voice.
Winner of the Edgar Award for Best First Novel
A Time Best Mystery and Thriller Book of All Time
The "gripping... page-turner" (Time) hitting all the best of summer reading lists, Miracle Creek is perfect for book clubs and fans of Liane Moriarty and Celeste Ng
How far will you go to protect your family? Will you keep their secrets? Ignore their lies?
In a small town in Virginia, a group of people know each other because they're part of a special treatment center, a hyperbaric chamber that may cure a range of conditions from infertility to autism. But then the chamber explodes, two people die, and it's clear the explosion wasn't an accident.
A powerful showdown unfolds as the story moves across characters who are all maybe keeping secrets, hiding betrayals. Chapter by chapter, we shift alliances and gather evidence: Was it the careless mother of a patient? Was it the owners, hoping to cash in on a big insurance payment and send their daughter to college? Could it have been a protester, trying to prove the treatment isn't safe?
"A stunning debut about parents, children and the unwavering hope of a better life, even when all hope seems lost" (Washington Post), Miracle Creek uncovers the worst prejudice and best intentions, tense rivalries and the challenges of parenting a child with special needs. It's "a quick-paced murder mystery that plumbs the power and perils of community" (O Magazine) as it carefully pieces together the tense atmosphere of a courtroom drama and the complexities of life as an immigrant family. Drawing on the author's own experiences as a Korean-American, former trial lawyer, and mother of a "miracle submarine" patient, this is a novel steeped in suspense and igniting discussion.
Recommended by Erin Morgenstern, Jean Kwok, Jennifer Weiner, Scott Turow, Laura Lippman, and more—Miracle Creek is a brave, moving debut from an unforgettable new voice.
Reviews-
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Starred review from January 1, 2019
A Byzantine web of lies surrounds a fatal fire at an unusual treatment facility in this taut legal drama.Kim, a former trial lawyer who turns 50 the same week her debut novel is published, does not make it easy on the reviewer charged with describing her book. This is a complicated and unusual story--though when you are reading it, it will all seem smooth as silk. The Yoos, an immigrant family from Korea, own a hyperbaric oxygen therapy tank in a town called Miracle Creek, Virginia. (In a characteristically wry aside, we learn that "Miracle Creek didn't look like a place where miracles took place, unless you counted the miracle of people living there for years without going insane from boredom.") HBOT treatment, which involves sitting in a chamber breathing pure, pressurized oxygen, is believed to be effective in remediating autism and male infertility, and those conditions are what define the group of people who are in the "submarine" when a fire, clearly set by an arsonist, causes it to explode. Two people are killed; others survive paralyzed or with amputations. The novel opens as the murder trial of the mother of a boy who died in the fire begins. As we come to understand the pressures she has been under as the single mother of a special needs child, it does not seem out of the question that she is responsible. But with all the other characters lying so desperately about what they were doing that evening, it can't be as simple as that. With so many complications and loose ends, one of the miracles of the novel is that the author ties it all together and arrives at a deeply satisfying--though not easy or sentimental--ending.Intricate plotting and courtroom theatrics, combined with moving insight into parenting special needs children and the psychology of immigrants, make this book both a learning experience and a page-turner. Should be huge.COPYRIGHT(2019) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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March 1, 2019
In Miracle Creek, Virginia, recent Korean immigrant Pak Yoo has staked his family's future on the Miracle Submarine, a hyperbaric oxygen chamber reputed to heal a range of conditions, from autism to infertility. When a fire beneath the chamber's oxygen tanks causes an explosion that kills two of his patients, Pak is paralyzed while trying to rescue the survivors. Now, Pak's client Elizabeth Ward is on trial for intentionally starting the fire that killed her autistic son, Henry, and her friend, Kitt. As the trial opens, Elizabeth seems deserving of the rage crinkling the courtroom's atmosphere: she researched hyperbaric-chamber-fire fatalities; excused herself from that evening's treatment; and insisted that Henry take the seat linked to the exploding tank. But once her attorney begins to pick apart the prosecution witnesses' testimony, Elizabeth's and the Yoos' alternating narratives slowly unveil secrets that paint a more complex picture of the crime. Powerful courtroom scenes invite comparisons to Scott Turow, but Kim's nuanced exploration of guilt, resentment, maternal love, and multifaceted justice may have stronger appeal for readers drawn to the Shakespearean tragedies in Chris Bohjalian's Midwives (1997) and William Landay's Defending Jacob (2012).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.) -
Starred review from March 1, 2019
Picture it: somewhere in rural Virginia, there's an experimental medical device called the Miracle Submarine, a pressurized oxygen chamber in which hopefuls take therapeutic "dives" that could cure them of issues like autism or infertility. Then the device explodes, killing two people, and owners Young and Pak Yoo must face a murder trial. Kim, a former lawyer and winner of the Wabash Prize in Fiction, is also the mother of an actual "submarine" patient, lending authenticity to the story. A Farrar Reading Group Selection.
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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March 1, 2019
Picture it: somewhere in rural Virginia, there's an experimental medical device called the Miracle Submarine, a pressurized oxygen chamber in which hopefuls take therapeutic "dives" that could cure them of issues like autism or infertility. Then the device explodes, killing two people, and owners Young and Pak Yoo must face a murder trial. Kim, a former lawyer and winner of the Wabash Prize in Fiction, is also the mother of an actual "submarine" patient, lending authenticity to the story. A Farrar Reading Group Selection.
Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
- Jung Yun, The Washington Post "A deeply moving story about parents and the lengths they will go for their children . . . Readers will be riveted by the book's genre-bending structure and superb pace. Miracle Creek is a stunning debut about parents, children and the unwavering hope of a better life, even when all hope seems lost."
- Erin Morgenstern, author of The Starless Sea "I literally couldn't put it down. It's that wonderful, brilliant story of book that you want to shove at other people as soon as you've finished."
- Jennifer Weiner for Good Morning America "A really, really gripping-page turner. . . . Something goes wrong, a mother and child die, there's a big courtroom showdown, and it turns out everyone is keeping secrets. . . . Recommended for those who love a good thriller."
- Steph Cha, Los Angeles Times "[A] mesmerizing debut . . . [Angie Kim] shows an enormous amount of empathy for her characters, infusing them with such intense humanity that I sat weeping for them in an airplane middle seat, between two strangers, for several minutes after I finished the book. With clear, assured prose and penetrating emotional intelligence, she takes us deep into their inner lives . . . The plotting is deliberate and detailed and marvelously done."
