Lee Jeong-myeong's 'Broken Summer', The New York Times' 'Thriller of the Year'

"Self-Deception, Self-Intoxication, and the Untold Truths: A Book"

Lee Jeong-myeong

Lee Jung-myung's novel Broken Summer has been named one of the six "Thrillers of the Year" by The New York Times in the United States. According to publisher Eunhaengnamu on the 13th, it stood alongside works such as Janice Hallett's The Appeal, Adam Hamdy's The Other Side of Night, Adrian McKinty's (UK) The Island, Sasha Roschield's (USA) Blood Sugar, and Dervla McTiernan's (Ireland) The Murder Rule.

Published in May last year, Broken Summer depicts how lies and misunderstandings destroy a happy and harmonious family and completely take away their lives through the twisted fates of three men and women. It shows the subtle truth that time, destroyed like fate through punishment and revenge caused by misunderstanding the truth and mistaking facts for lies, cannot be easily reversed. It also questions whether the illusions and misunderstandings that sustain life exist by the name of love or happiness beside us.

In the United States, it was published last September through Amazon Crossing. It was introduced as a New York Times editors' pick and received high praise from literary media such as Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist. The Amazon book introduction site has over 2,000 reader reviews, most of which praise the excellent psychological portrayal, meticulously constructed narrative, and dramatic tension.

The New York Times described it as "a book about self-deception, narcissism, and unspoken truths that can sustain and destroy a marriage, rather than a traditional murder mystery."

Lee Jung-myung is regarded as a writer who opened a new horizon for Korean-style faction (a creative work based on historical facts with added imagination by the author). His representative works include Deep-Rooted Tree and The Painter of the Wind, both adapted into dramas, and The Wind Blows Over the Star, which has been translated and published in about ten countries overseas.