The Forest of Stolen Girls

Set in 1426 on the Korean island of Jeju, The Forest of Stolen Girls follows Hwani, whose family has never recovered from the day she and her younger sister disappeared into a nearby forest and were found unconscious beside a gruesome crime scene. Years later, her father — a detective — travels back to investigate the disappearance of thirteen more girls from that same forest, only to go missing himself.

Hwani returns to her childhood home to pick up his trail, forcing her back into contact with her estranged sister Maewol and into the secrets the small village has kept for years. As she investigates, Hwani is drawn into confronting her own fragmented memories of what happened to her in the forest as a child, and the case becomes as much about her family's buried past as about the missing girls.

A haunting, atmospheric historical mystery for teen and adult readers alike, the novel draws on the real historical constraints placed on women's bodies and autonomy in Joseon-era Korea, and was named a Junior Library Guild Selection on release.