The Picture Bride: A Novel

Lee Geum-yi

Oct 2022 · Macmillan Audio · Narrated by Joy Osmanski

About this audiobook

"With the mellifluous tones of shakuhachi music setting the story, listeners are taken to a time and place far from the current era. Aurally illustrating the young bride’s quietly independent nature, Osmanski’s performance draws listeners into Willow’s story." - Library Journal

“Lee Geum-yi has a gift for taking little-known embers of history and transforming them into moving, compelling, and uplifting stories. The Picture Bride is the ultimate story of the power of friendship—a must read!” —Heather Morris, #1 New York Times bestselling author

“Your husband is a landowner,” they told her.

“Food and clothing is so plentiful, it grows on trees.”

“You will be able to go to school.”

Of the three lies the matchmaker told Willow before she left home as a picture bride in 1918, the third hurt the most. Never one to be deterred, Willow does all that she can to make the best of her unexpected circumstance. But it isn't long before her dreams for this new life are shattered, first by a husband who never wanted to marry her in the first place, and then by the escalation of the Korean independence movements, unified in goal, but divergent in action, which threaten to split the Hawaiian Korean community and divide Willow's family and friends.

Braving the rough waters of these tumultuous years, Willow forges ahead, creating new dreams through her own blood, sweat, and tears; working tirelessly toward a better life for her family and loved ones.

“A beautiful testimony to those women bold and determined enough to leave behind all that was familiar, seeking a better life.” —Lisa Wingate, #1 New York Times bestselling author

A Macmillan Audio production from Forge Books.

Ratings and reviews

As a person who loves reading historical fiction, this book was definitely for me. I knew nothing about picture brides— women in Korea that would marry men in Hawaii based off their pictures of each other. This book mainly followed the story of Willow, a poor girl from a Korean Village. It didn’t just talk about Willow’s marriage; the book also talked about the struggles of Korean and other Asian immigrants to Hawaii. Overall it was a great book.

About the author

LEE GEUM-YI was born in 1962, in her grandmother's house in the small, mountainous village of Chungcheongbuk-do, Korea. She became enthralled with the charms of storytelling early on, having spent her childhood under the influence of her grandmother's bedtime stories. Since then, Lee Geum-yi has published over fifty books in South Korea, and her work has been translated around the world. Beloved by readers and literary critics alike, many of her books have been adapted into TV series, musicals, and webtoons. The author lives in Seoul, South Korea, with her husband, son, and her old rescue dog, Lulu. The Picture Bride is her first novel to be translated into English.

AN SEONJAE (translator) has lived in Korea since 1980. He was born in Cornwall in 1942, and since 1969 has been a member of the Community of Taizé, where he is known as Brother Anthony. He has published some 50 volumes of translated Korean poetry, as well as the translations of several Korean novels.