Your House Will Pay
'Elegant [and] suspenseful.' New York Times
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3.8 • 5 Ratings
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- €8.49
Publisher Description
Winner of the LA Times Book Prize
Two families.
One desperate to remember, the other to forget.
Will the truth burn them both?
'Masterful.' Ruth Ware
'A searing examination of racial and family politics that is also an immaculately constructed whodunit.' Daily Telegraph, Summer Reads
'Writing a page-turner about racial politics in the U.S. is a delicate enterprise fraught with pitfalls, but Cha manages it superbly in this thought-provoking family saga.' Daily Mail, Summer Reads
Grace Park and Shawn Mathews share a city, but seemingly little else. Coming from different generations and very different communities, their paths wouldn't normally cross at all. As Grace battles confusion over her elder sister's estrangement from their Korean-immigrant parents, Shawn tries to help his cousin Ray readjust to life on the outside after years spent in prison.
But something in their past links these two families. As the city around them threatens to spark into violence, echoing events from their past, the lives of Grace and Shawn are set to collide in ways which will change them all forever.
Beautifully written, and marked by its aching humanity as much as its growing sense of dread, Your House Will Pay is a powerful and moving family story, perfect for readers of Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere and Paul Beatty's The Sellout.
What readers are saying:
'Simultaneously thrilling and thoughtful... a terrific, fast-moving story of two characters trying to live with the truth.'
'A must-read.'
'This novel is wonderful... it will stick with you.'
'Sensitive and astute, it's a book we need right now, and it's a book that lingers, offering plenty to think about.'
'A smart, powerful, fully-engaged book that never once blinks or backs down or takes an easy out, and then nails one of the best endings I've ever read.'
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Steeped in Los Angeles’ fraught history of race relations, this gripping novel centres on two Californian families—one African-American, the other Korean-American—whose stories become inextricably tangled. In the aftermath of the Rodney King trial, vivacious teenager Ava Matthews is gunned down by middle-aged Jung-Ja Han in a convenience store. The effects of this event ripple poisonously for generations, and Steph Cha draws us into her characters’ lives with precision and insight. Cha, the author of the Juniper Song detective series, draws from a deep well of empathy as she explores the impact of incarceration on a family. Your House Will Pay reads like a powerful miniseries.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Based on a true case, Cha's ambitious tale of race, identity, and murder delivers on the promise of her Juniper Song mysteries (Dead Soon Enough, etc.). Racial tensions in Los Angeles are at a boiling point following the police shooting of a black teenager, and 27-year-old Grace Park, who lives with her Korean immigrant parents, shares the sense of outrage felt by many. Her sheltered world is suddenly shattered when her mother, Yvonne, is shot in front of the family pharmacy in a drive-by shooting. Dark family secrets begin to emerge about Yvonne's involvement in the notorious 1991 shooting of Ava Matthews, an unarmed young black woman, by a Korean shopkeeper. Grace is torn by conflicting emotions of concern for her mother and shame at the implications of her mother's crime. Meanwhile, Ava's brother, Shawn Matthews, has tried to put the past behind him. When news of Yvonne's attempted murder reaches him, it brings up emotions Shawn has long fought to keep down. The tension rises as the authorities circle in on his family as possible suspects in Yvonne's shooting. This timely, morally complex story could well be Cha's breakout novel.
