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This Burns My Heart

This Burns My Heart
A Novel  
This edition: eBook, 320 pages
Availability: Available for immediate download
List Price: $9.99
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On the eve of her marriage, beautiful and strong-willed Soo-Ja Choi receives a passionate proposal from a young medical student. But caught up in her desire to pursue a career in Seoul, she turns him away, having impetuously chosen another man who she believes will let her fulfill her dreams. Instead, she finds herself tightly bound by tradition and trapped in a suffocating marriage, her ambition reduced to carving out a successful future for her only daughter. Through it all, she longs for the man she truly loves, whose path she seems destined to cross again and again. In This Burns My Heart, Samuel Parks has crafted a transcendent love story that vibrantly captures 1960s South Korea and brings to life an unforgettable heroine.

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“An incredible read . . . I don’t want it to end. I love it!”
-- Hoda Kotb, Today
“Extraordinary . . . A page-turner of a book . . . South Korea provides not only the backdrop of Soo-Ja’s story, but also the context for Park’s novel, which spans the decades after the Korean War to the beginning of the country’s economic boom. In a sense, Soo-Ja’s story parallels South Korea’s development from a poor, struggling state to a gleaming Asian tiger.”
-- Chicago Tribune
“Memorable . . . Atmospheric and exuberantly filmic . . . a simple but visceral romance in a refreshing Korean setting.”
-- The Miami Herald
“Park does a good job of bringing the rapidly changing South Korea of the 1960s alive. As cities sprout from beanfields and rickshaws give way to Kias, the world around Soo-Ja and her family is changing at a frightening speed. . . . I especially recommend this novel to readers who were intrigued (as was I) by Lisa See’s Dreams of Joy, set in postwar China. The contrast is fascinating.”
-- The Christian Science Monitor
This Burns My Heart is quietly stunning--a soft, fierce story that lingers in the mind. Samuel Park is a deft and elegant writer; this is a very exciting debut.”
-- Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife
“Vivid…atmospheric . . . Park’s descriptions of antigovernment clashes and the martyrdom of a 12-year-old boy, in particular, provide eerily prescient reverberations of recent clashes in Syria.”
-- Boston Globe
“Writing prose with the beauty of poetry, Samuel Park traces a young woman's journey to hard-won maturity, alongside the meteoric rise of post-war Korea, in a novel which shines with eloquence and wisdom.”
-- David Henry Hwang, Tony-Award winning author of M. Butterfly
This Burns My Heart is a delicate yet powerful story of love, loss, and endurance. The emotional world of the heroine, Soo-Ja, is beautifully realized; I found myself caught up in her dramas from start to finish.”
-- Sarah Waters, author of The Little Stranger and Fingersmith
“Park does a good job of bringing the rapidly changing South Korea of the 1960s alive. As cities sprout from beanfields and rickshaws give way to Kias, the world around Soo-Ja and her family is changing at a frightening speed. . . . I especially recommend this novel to readers who were intrigued (as was I) by Lisa See’s Dreams of Joy, set in postwar China. The contrast is fascinating.”
-- The Christian Science Monitor
“An understatedly brilliant tale . . . Through Soo-Ja’s eyes, Park beautifully evokes 1960s war-torn South Korea.”
-- Audrey Magazine
"This Burns My Heart is at once a passionate and sensitive love story and a fascinating historical novel set against the cultural dislocations of a rising South Korea. In his heroine Soo-Ja, Samuel Park has created an emotionally resonant character that readers will root for and long remember."
-- John Burnham Schwartz, bestselling author of The Commoner and Reservation Road
"Both an epic love story and an intimate depiction of life in post-war Korea, This Burns My Heart introduces a singular heroine whose passions, struggles, and triumphs are mirrored in our own. Samuel Park is one of those rare writers whose talent transcends the limits of race and gender."
-- Wendy Lee, author of Happy Family
"This Burns My Heart captured me with a heroine who is both irresistible and flawed, and engrossed me with increasing twists in a triangle of love and sacrifice. The story explores how a fateful choice colors a decade of marriage, and challenges a young woman's ambition already constrained by traditional Korean culture. Sam Park paints all the flavors of post-war Korea in this vivid debut, and his understanding and expression of the human heart is universal."
-- Eugenia Kim, author of The Calligrapher's Daughter
"The very talented Samuel Park weaves a compelling, vivid story of one family's evolution that deftly mirrors Korea's development from ancient country to modern society."
-- Janice Y.K. Lee, New York Times bestselling author of The Piano Teacher
Denver Post, July 10, 2011
...three Americans as they each set off to explore the city with a French tutor. From the publisher This Burns My Heart by Samuel Park An unflappable heroine anchors Park's epic post- Korean War love story. Publishers weekly ...