Miracle Creek Review

This book was tremendously fun to read. I lost track of the number of times I gasped. It had everything I look for in a good book: great writing, a great story, and great suspense.

Young, Mary, and Pak leave their lives in Korea to pursue better opportunities in America. They move to a small town in Miracle Creek, Virginia. In an effort to provide for his family, Pak creates Miracle Submarine, a hyperbaric chamber that has the potential to cure a range of conditions from infertility to autism. The patients he acquires, along with himself and his family, become part of a deadly explosion that changes everybody’s lives forever. It isn’t clear, however, whether this explosion was an accident or intentional.

The beginning was like the beginning of a radio hit pop song. It started with a bang! It started with the chorus and I knew immediately I was going to enjoy this beat.

Angie Kim thrives in the courtroom scenes. She knows how lawers speak. She knows what kind of questions they ask. She knows how to take us inside the head of the jurors and the defendant and the witnesses. She had me on the edge of my seat.

The courtroom scenes were only part of the story. Much of it takes place in the past, in the heads of everyone involved. What looked so clear cut in the beginning slowly gains traction and multiple layers until eventually I truly had no idea who committed the crime. Angie Kim artfully weaved between the past and the present and I was with her every step of the way.

One aspect of the story I loved – truly, truly loved – was Angie’s detailed description of Elizabeth’s motives, intentions, and thoughts about being a parent. It takes an honest parent to tell a raw story about the hardships of parenting. It felt so real! Before long I was sympathizing with Elizabeth, a character I was sure I was going to hate. Angie took the time to thoroughly explain Elizabeth’s side of things and oddly enough, it all made sense! Everyone’s side of things made sense! I was scratching my head at the ingenuity of it all.

Mary, Young’s daughter, rivals Elizabeth as the most interesting character. Through Angie’s well-crafted storytelling we see Mary’s sadness, her desperation for love, and her reckless attempts to remedy those feelings. I felt bad for her and yet understood why she did the things she did. Angie made her into such a complex character. I pitied her destructive methods to heal her wounds but I understood why she did them. Just like all of us, she made bad choices and I enjoyed how Angie unraveled those choices page by page, crafting the essential backbone to the story.

Young, Pak, Mary, Elizabeth, Henry, Matt, Teresa, etc… They were all so unique! Not a single character blended into the other. That’s a huge accomplishment for a writer and storyteller. All of them came alive off the page.

I was so enthralled by this story. It was genre-bending. Part murder mystery, part legal thriller, part psychological thriller, part suspense, part literary fiction. It was so impressed. This one will stay with me. I give it a big five stars.

Miracle Creek can be purchased on Amazon, Barnes & Nobel, or Bookshop, where every purchase supports independent bookstores.