An instant bestseller, exported to 33 countries, and confirmed for a Sony Pictures film adaptation!
In life, which continues even when you lose your direction
A story that gives you the courage and reason to move forward again.

"A work that precisely targets the human heart and pierces it with a single breath."
Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing

★★★ #1 Amazon Novel Bestseller
★★★ New York Times 24-week bestseller
★★★ Over 1 million copies sold worldwide!
★★★ Exported to 33 countries immediately after publication!
★★★ Finalist for Sweden's 'Book of the Year 2025'
★★★ Sony Pictures confirmed to film!

“A story that shatters and makes whole your heart at the same time.”
A harsh separation and wandering that befell a family…
A powerful and beautiful journey against the odds

“An unforgettable story about love, loss, and the choices that define life.
But at the same time, it's a sophisticated mystery that keeps readers on the edge of their seats until the very last page.
“I didn’t expect this ending at all.”
─Reese Witherspoon, actress

Broken Country, which signed with an agent with a first manuscript of just 10,000 words and was even made into a film before publication, is finally coming to Korean readers.
Published in the United States in March 2025 after four years of writing, the novel became a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller, along with a Reese Witherspoon Book Club selection, and remains high on the Amazon charts.
Furthermore, even before its official publication, overseas translation contracts were signed, and the rights were sold to over 33 countries. Immediately after its publication, it became a bestseller in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Italy, and other countries, receiving worldwide love.

Born amidst the fervent interest of the film and drama industries and global readers, "Broken Country" is a work that delicately combines a love story set in a pastoral rural setting with the suspenseful thrill of a mystery that leaves you unpredictable until the very last page.
And it is a story of people who, in a relationship fractured by loss and silence, still move forward together.
On a farm in the beautiful coastal town of Dorset, England, Beth and Frank, a young couple who have lost a child, and Gabriel, an old lover who has reappeared after many years, face each other with their own wounds and secrets.
The crack left by a single gunshot between them unravels long-hidden memories and wounds, and their hearts, wavering between love, forgiveness, and responsibility, are ultimately forced to choose what they must protect.

In an interview, the author stated, “I wanted to show the struggles of a young woman trying to break through prejudice.” In this novel, the author tells the story of a woman breaking through prejudice and norms and choosing her own direction in life.
The novel delicately depicts the protagonist Beth's journey of finding her own voice while wavering between the loss of her child, a reunion with her first love that she thought was over, and the trust she has with her beloved husband. It asks how an individual can find their way again in the face of the countless forces of nature that must be endured, and what gives them the strength to move forward into the future.

The ranch man died.
In the face of death, people only wonder who killed him.
Was it an accident? Or was it a planned murder? The gunshot wound to the heart suggested it was a murder.
It must have been a planned murder aimed squarely at the heart.

They were waiting for me to speak.
Two pairs of eyes were staring at me intently.
But how could I possibly say what he asked me to say, the words I'd rehearsed countless times before the police arrived? I shook my head.
More time was needed.

--- p.11

Frank spends a lot of time on the ranch, day and night, caring for the animals and tending the land.
He works harder than anyone I know, but he always finds time to admire the beauty of a spring sunset or the dizzying flight of a magpie soaring into the sky.
He lived in deep harmony with the weather and the wildlife.
This was one of the many aspects of him that I loved.
Frank had no time to read novels or go to the theater.
He was the kind of person who wouldn't know what a dry martini was if someone splashed it on his face.
He was the complete opposite of Gabriel Wolf, at least in the way he was portrayed in the newspapers.

--- p.13

It's strange the fragmented stories we tell when we want someone to understand us.
We talk about it as if it were a shortcut to knowing ourselves, but is that really possible?

--- p.44

It was all Leo's fault.
It was because of the hand that kid was holding.
We had forgotten that young children, like animals, intuitively sense pain and do not avoid it or become uncomfortable with it.

--- p.49

Frank and I circle each other's sorrow.
Any couple who has lost a child will nod their head in agreement.
Of course, they can see the other person's pain, but they only want to avoid tripping each other up, as if they were on a seesaw of sadness.

--- p.49

Frank had a solemn and serious expression on his face that was rare to see.
'Beth, don't get involved with that kid.
He is not our son.
You might want to say something like, 'But that doesn't mean our son won't come back.'
Instead, Frank said:
“Shouldn’t you be worried about spending time with Wolf and his son?” I wanted to say to him.
'You were the one who put Bobby in danger.
It wasn't me, it was you.'
--- p.63

The golden eagle has been nesting in our ash tree for three years in a row, and Bobby really likes the golden eagle.
(…) When Bobby came home from school, we would go to the hideout every day and wait for the male hawk to fly out to find food, and the male always flew out diligently.
We loved seeing the pink beaks open the most when the chicks got a little older and the male returned.
When the chicks left the nest after about six weeks, they were always sad, but when they returned the following spring, they were very excited.
Since the year Bobby died, Hwang Jo-rong has not returned.

--- p.87

We had so many regrets on the day Barbie died.
If we had done those things right, everything would have been different.
But that didn't happen.


Suddenly, it occurred to me that being together might actually make healing more difficult.
Now I can look at this situation from the outside, as if looking in from the inside.
The two of us were just rocking back and forth, riding on the dark rock of sadness.

--- p.131