J M Hong

Beloved Sa Mi J M Hong

Love is all that is certain... As a fifteen-year-old coming of age during the Japanese colonial period in Korea (1910-1945), Sa Mi revels in her status as her parents' youngest and most beloved daughter as she seeks to stave off her recent ascent into womanhood. Fate's mighty hand, however, strikes down, leaving Sa Mi to grasp at love and memory as her life makes an abrupt and inevitable turn. Beloved Sa Mi is Book One of the series A River Han. This historical family drama follows Sa Mi as she navigates her life and raises her growing family amidst the threat of the Japanese and a society upended. Throughout her trials, her mother's words regarding the certainty of love and love alone, echo within Sa Mi as she finds herself constrained in her roles as a wife to a man who cannot control his vice, and as a mother to a growing arsenal of strangers. At the end of the colonial period, Sa Mi's children are forced to reckon with a new world order, a social status that is no longer relevant, and an ideological conflict that threatens to split their country and families apart. Beloved Sa Mi provides a glimmer into the folly, frailty, and fortitude of the human heart.