Set in 1966 China, The Morgue Keeper is not a story of rebellion in the traditional sense… it's a story of survival, of sharing cigarettes and kindness when there's nothing left. I finished it wrecked, and grateful to have read it.

Messy but full of energy, The Book of Taba is a self-published debut that blends anime-style action, found family, and a soul-draining magic system. There are rough edges here, but also characters I cared about, and ideas that stuck with me. If you like reading early indie voices with ambition, this one might surprise you.

He felt himself floating far out at sea, deep down in the silence, alone. He was conscious only of the sea, and of himself in the sea.

Jinwoo Park’s debut novel Oxford Soju Club might look like a spy story on the surface, but it’s really a quiet and sharp novel about identity, performance, and fractured belonging in the Korean diaspora.

A quiet, emotionally layered novel about love, missed connection, and the slow ache of wrong timing. Graceful and unresolved in all the right ways.

A soft, surreal novella about memory, care, and emotional quiet. Marigold Mind Laundry doesn’t ask you to understand — just to sit with it.

A delicate, devastating novel of loneliness and unspoken pain. Read my spoiler-free review of Violets by Kyung-Sook Shin, quiet, poetic, unforgettable.

Beautifully written and deeply disturbing, Mishima’s novel is a haunting dive into the fragility of human ideals, the cruelty of innocence, and the darkness that lies beneath admiration.

A lyrical coming-of-age story set during China’s Cultural Revolution, Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress captures the quiet power of literature to spark transformation even in the most isolated corners of the world.