A REESE’S BOOK CLUB PICK INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Riveting and unconventional, The Last Story of Mina Lee traces the far-reaching consequences of secrets in the lives of a Korean immigrant mother and her daughter Margot Lee's mother is ignoring her calls. Margot can’t understand why, until she makes a surprise trip home to Koreatown, LA, and finds that her mother has suspiciously died. Determined to discover the truth, Margot unravels her single mother’s past as a Korean War orphan and an undocumented immigrant, only to realize how little she truly knew about her mother, Mina. Thirty years earlier, Mina Lee steps off a plane to take a chance on a new life in America. Stacking shelves at a Korean grocery store, the last thing she expects is to fall in love. But that moment leads to repercussions for Mina that echo through the decades, leading up to the truth of what happened the night of her death. Told through the intimate lens of a mother and daughter who have struggled all their lives to understand each other, The Last Story of Mina Lee is a powerful and exquisitely woven debut novel that explores identity, family, secrets, and what it truly means to belong. HIGHLY ANTICIPATED BY FORTUNE · POPSUGAR · PUREWOW · BETCHES · GMA.COM · VULTURE · BUSTLE · THE MILLIONS · LITHUB · BOOKRIOT · BOOKISH “Painful, joyous... A story that cries out to be told.” — Los Angeles Times “Kim is a brilliant new voice in American fiction.” —Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel “Suspenseful and deeply felt.” —Chloe Benjamin, author of The Immortalists “A timely, important novel... Fans of Celeste Ng won't be able to put down this heartfelt, cross-generational novel about the powerful bond and fragility of family and what it really means to strive for the “American dream.”" — Popsugar “The book, delicately understated in style, offers lessons in racism from the viewpoints of both mother and daughter. But the matter of tracking Mina’s killer provides a steady stream of pure sleuthing that is authentic and persuasive.” — Toronto Star “The plotline smoothly shifts from the present to the past and back as Mina’s stories pull us into life in Koreatown... a sensitive and moving family saga.” — Mystery Scene Magazine "Kim has a gift for page-turning plot.... A moving tale of a mother and daughter finding each other, a reunion made all the more poignant by coming too late." — Seattle Times "A moving look at what immigrants to America go through before their journey and what they lose upon arrival, and how their American children can be caught between worlds." —Alyssa Cole, CrimeReads “Haunting and heartbreaking, troubled threads between a mother and daughter blend together in a delicate and rich weave… With both sadness and beauty, [Kim] describes grief, regret, loss, and the feeling of being left behind. Fans of Amy Tan and Kristin Hannah will love Kim's brilliant debut.” — Booklist , STARRED review "A magnificent exploration of a mother-daughter bond even when words fail them, when past stories and heartbreaks remain untold.” — San Diego Union Tribune “Suspenseful and deeply felt, The Last Story of Mina Lee begins when Margot Lee discovers her mother's death before reeling back in time to explore the secrets that divided Mina and Margot—as well as those that bound them together. Nancy Jooyoun Kim's debut artfully explores a diverse range of immigrant experiences, the meaning of family and home, and the nature of language—how it can be an ocean that divides, or a bridge that connects. In the process, The Last Story of Mina Lee raises questions about the reality of the American dream and illuminates stories that often go untold, in life as well as fiction.” — Chloe Benjamin, New York Times bestselling author of The Immortalists "In The Last Story of Mina Lee , Nancy Jooyoun Kim explores with tenderness and grace the intricate web of guilt, love and secrecy that entangles a mother and daughter. Powerful and poignant, this riveting novel speaks to the complexities of the immigration experience while keeping the reader enthralled by the mystery of the mother's suspicious death." —Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Searching for Sylvie Lee “Nancy Jooyoun Kim’s debut carefully illuminates the two sides of the silence between a Korean immigrant mother and her Korean American daughter, a silence only too familiar to many of us—and emerges with a stunningly powerful and original novel about social class, immigration and family. Kim is a brilliant new voice in American fiction.” — Alexander Chee, bestselling author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel “ The Last Story of Mina Lee is a fierce, gripping call to love and memory. Nancy Jooyoun Kim has written a beautiful debut novel that is unafraid to delve into the scary, deeply vulnerable places of our hearts. It's a riveting dance between mother and daughter, moving fluidly bac