Aviary
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- Pre-Order
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- Expected Apr 7, 2026
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- $9.99
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- Pre-Order
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A young woman undertakes a terrifying journey—and a terrifying transformation—in this genre-blending speculative suspense novel set in South Korea and the US which mixes fantasy, gothic vibes and queer longing, with a shot of feminist body horror.
Fairytales are for children.
Until the day we awaken in a place full of monsters,
being softly enveloped by the dark.
Nineteen-year-old undocumented immigrant Hee-Jin lies on the floor of her cramped Seoul apartment, listening for footsteps.
But the knock on the door isn’t the police finally coming to deport her to North Korea. Instead, sprawled on the doorstep is a disfigured, bird-like corpse—and it has her eyes. Her younger sister, artist Hee-Young, is meant to be on an art program in America, not dead of a strange overdose.
But in Hee-Young’s pocket is a plane ticket and US passport. Seeing her chance for freedom, Hee-Jin steals her sister’s identity and takes her place, determined to uncover what really happened to her.
But the deeper she dives into the program’s strange workings, the closer she gets to the monstrous secret at its heart.
A page-turner of a mystery filled with gorgeous, creepy Korean folklore and imagery, Aviary, written by critically acclaimed Korean American author Maria Dong, is also a story about power, violence, exploitation—and transformation. And, above all, it's about the choices women make from within a system where all the available options are bad ones.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In gorgeous prose, Dong (Liar, Dreamer, Thief) crafts a jam-packed, genre-bending story of murder, captivity, ghosts, monsters, and a harrowing escape to freedom. Hee-Jin is an undocumented woman living in South Korea in perpetual fear of being discovered. Her sister, Hee-Young, has long since disappeared to America for an artist residency, but suddenly she shows up at Hee-Jin's doorstep, horrifically transformed and on the brink of death. When Hee-Jin finds Hee-Young's immaculately forged U.S. passport, she makes the desperate choice to steal it and flee to the U.S. In Pittsburgh, she assumes her sister's identity and rejoins a mysterious mentorship program for impoverished young female artists from unstable parts of the world. Soon, however, Hee-Jin realizes she's more prisoner than volunteer, and it becomes clear the program is far more sinister and dangerous than she could have ever imagined, full of perils both real and imagined, and plenty of ghosts to light the way. Dong's exquisite descriptions of Hee-Jin's isolation and loneliness are haunting, and the nods to Korean folklore add to the lush, almost dreamlike experience. Some questions go frustratingly unanswered and the thematic explorations of Korean diasporic identities, female exploitation, and the nature of art jostle for space. Still, this grisly and tragic tale should win plenty of fans.
