by Mi-Kyung Yun, 184 pages
Desperate in the face of a years-long drought, Soah's village determines its only salvation is to sacrifice her to the water god, Haebek, and pray he will be appeased and bless them with rain. But instead of being eaten or worse, Soah finds herself safely washed up on the shore of the land of Suguk, Haebek's otherworldly home. When she's brought through the palace to meet her new husband, he's not at all what she or her village expected. As Soah adjusts to her new home and its host of residents and visitors, all of whom are something more than human (or even gods, themselves), she finds some little happiness in having a place in which to belong, even if she is the odd one out. But the delicate equilibrium of her existence is disturbed by the arrival of a very powerful and much-feared visitor--Haebek's cold, deadly mother...who is very keen to meet her new daughter-in-law.
Mmm, pretty. The story's a little hard to follow at first, but once you get the hang of the author's tendency to go back and forth in time, it works. Mysteries and danger lurk everywhere and little is what it seems, including the secretive Haebek.
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