Stone Angels

In this extraordinary novel, a forty-year-old woman journeys to her cultural homeland—and uncovers a harrowing secret that makes her rethink everything she thought she knew about her mother.

"An unforgettable story about mothers, daughters, and sisters reaching inward for solace and strength when society has failed them, ultimately triumphant in love." ―Jimin Han, author of The Apology

Angelina Lee feels like she doesn’t belong. Newly divorced and completely unmoored by the sudden, tragic death of her mother, she hopes studying Korean will reconnect her to her roots. But nothing about Seoul feels familiar. Further complicating matters is the resurgence of an alluring man from Angelina’s past, and fellow classmate Keisuke Ono, an irritatingly good-looking Japanese American journalist who refuses to leave her alone.

Angelina is reluctant to admit the true reason for her trip—trying to understand her mother's suicide. A shocking conversation with an estranged relative proves her suspicion correct: her mother had an older sister, Sunyuh, who disappeared under the Japanese occupation of Korea during WWII—a secret the family buried for over sixty years. 

Angelina knows, deep down, her mother’s fateful decision must be linked to Sunyuh. To find answers, Angelina embarks on a journey that takes her across oceans and continents, and challenges everything she believed about herself and her heritage.

Told through the bold, determined voices of three women, this poignant family drama explores love, grief, healing, and the complicated love that exists between mothers and daughters. It’s about the questions we wish we had asked lost relatives, the lives we could have lived had we made different choices, and, above all, second chances.

"At turns lyrical and raw, Stone Angels is a haunting novel that will stay with the reader long past the final page, perfect for fans of Min Jin Lee’s Pachinko or Jing-Jing Lee’s How We Disappeared." ―A.H. Kim, author of A Good Family and Relative Strangers

Helena Rho is a four-time Pushcart Prize nominated writer and the author of American Seoul. A former assistant professor of pediatrics, she has practiced and taught at top ten children's hospitals: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Johns Hopkins Hospital, and Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. She earned her MFA in creative nonfiction from the University of Pittsburgh. For more information, visit HelenaRho.com.