Korean Black

Some cities stay with you whether you want them to or not.

Yi Seo Kim left Seoul at nine years old the night her mother died. She built a life in New York — careful, deliberate, successful. She told herself she was ready to go back. She was not ready for what going back would mean.

Now twenty-one, Yi returns to Seoul carrying two identities. At Korea Fashion Week, she steps forward as herself — Yi Seo Kim, FIT Emerging Designer, debuting the collection she has spent years building. At Seoul Fashion Week, she and her brother Liam disappear behind masks as Korean Black, an anonymous DJ duo the city has been talking about for months. Two worlds. Two versions of herself. One city that has been keeping secrets just as long as she has.

Then Jun Woo Han walks into her orbit. Quietly magnetic, impossibly perceptive — and connected to her family's past in ways neither of them yet understand. He isn't looking for Korean Black. He's looking at her. And Yi, for the first time in longer than she can remember, doesn't want to disappear.

But the truth her parents have been protecting her from for twelve years is about to surface. And it answers to his mother's name.

Korean Black is a slow-burn New Adult romance about identity, belonging, grief, and the cost of finally letting someone see all of you — set against the electric backdrop of Seoul's fashion and music world.

Genre: New Adult Contemporary Romance

Setting: Seoul, South Korea

Themes: Dual identity · Multicultural family · Slow burn romance · Diaspora · Fashion & music world