MIRACLE CREEK left me totally gutted. Angie Kim is a beautiful writer, and has crafted a novel that is equal parts courtroom drama, taut mystery, and heartbreaking story about hope—hope for medical miracles, hope for a better future, hope for your children. This one will haunt me for a while.

As soon as I started this book, I felt it rushed into the story a little quickly and I wasn’t too sure what was going on. Throughout the novel, I then did a full 180 and thought the events were dragged out especially towards the end when I just wanted the loose ends tied up quickly. I felt a bit confused by all the different character chapters and use of first person - I often forgot who was narrating. I did enjoy the topic of the novel and gained knowledge and interest from the details of the submarine. I also thought the story was well thought-out, if a little coincidental in parts. As most of the book is set in the court room, I found my interest dipping in and out as I thought it was a bit too long/unnecessary in parts. With that said, there was still plenty of drama and tension with a number of suspects hiding the real version of events which keep you guessing until the end.

What a fascinating read! Part twisty mystery, part family drama, and part medical/science lesson. I could really feel myself envisioning the experience of spending an hour a day twice a day in a small space with the same few people, which I feel like is a big credit to how great the writing is!

Miracle Creek has a lot going for it and is very interesting from several points of view. It has an excellent element of suspense as to just who lit the match causing the tragedy and why. There were lots of possibilities and all were thoroughly explored. For the most part characterization was good and rang true to each character’s background. The plot moved right along in a forward manner with very little fluff. And the ending (in my opinion) was perfect.

Stepping into the lives of mothers with autistic children or children who later were afflicted with cerebral palsy was heart rending and beautifully painted.

So what were the negatives? First off the racial sentiments and inflammatory nature of those scenes was a big negative. Most of that didn’t ring true and merely served as an anti-American issue. Well, yes, I suppose that was the cause of the daughter’s wanting to return to Korea, but there were just a lot of holes in that issue. In fact there were a lot of holes in the story line of the Koreans, but this was the most distressing.

The second was the LIES! OMG! For readers who like books rife with lies, this is your book!! You definitely need a scorecard to keep up with who told what lie and whether or not it is in any way credible. Whew! The last third of the book got bogged down with fabrications from first one character and then another. It was definitely hard to keep anything straight at that point. When the story concluded, I was not sure the final explanation was what really happened or just another fabrication.

All in all I’d say this was 3.5 stars, rounded up to 4. I will probably read another book by Kim.

This ARC was provided to me by NetGalley and the publisher, Sarah Crichton Books, in exchange for an honest review.

I couldn't put down this courtroom drama / mystery! The format of the story allowed things to unfold with wonderful pacing and maximum suspense. The moral and ethical questions that this book raises makes it not only an engaging and quick read, but a great one for book clubs!

I was pleasantly surprised by Miracle Creek, the story of Young and Pak Yoo who run a pressurized oxygen chamber know as the Miracle Submarine, patients use this submarine for therapeutic dives with hopes that it will cure things like autism.
One day the Miracle Submarine explodes and two people lose their lives and the Yoo’s face a murder trail in a small community. The book has us guessing who or what caused the explosion, was it a patient or if the Yoo’s did it themselves.
This book is a great thriller and I could not put it down. Angie’s writing is so beautiful you want to keep turning the pages so you can find out what happens next.
I am truly thankful for NetGalley for allowing me to read this book.. It was very good and I highly recommend it.

I hated when life got in the way and I had to put this book down! Full of suspense and drama and the characters were realistic, almost too much so at points. I loved the little tidbits of important information throughout, leaving us readers to try and piece the truth together and the culmination of the whole traumatic event that was the basis of the story was told so well. A great debut novel by Angie Kim! When this book releases, I will definitely be sharing with my group of reader friends.

This was an incredible book that I enjoyed much more then I would have ever predicted! Miracle Creek tells the story of a woman on trial charged with murder as the result of a fire in a hyperbaric chamber (a pressurized oxygen chamber!). The fired killed two people and injured others. It is however so much more than that! With the trial as a background, the author develops a rich and textured story that examines the love and sacrifice that comes with family. This examination is as nuanced and complex as love and family really are. The book flawlessly weaves together two seemingly unrelated struggles, that of an immigrant family struggling for survival in a new country and the struggle of families with autistic children. What we find however is that these struggles are not unrelated at all. These struggles are born from each families single-minded determination that their children will have a fulfilling life and reach their maximum potential. Nothing is simple in this novel, and for that reason, it is an incredible journey. Miracle Creek is absolutely a book worth reading and one that will stay with you long after you have read the last page. I thoroughly recommend it! I was honored to receive a free copy of this book by NetGalley and the Publisher, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in exchange for an honest review.

This one sucked me right in..... and I couldn't wait to pick it up each time.
Labelled a courtroom drama,very little happens in the courtroom,just a few subtle actions that change the way the story works.
What it mainly has,is a group of people that are lying,to cover up something.... non of them aware that the other is lying.
At each new chapter it felt like someone else had set the fire that killed two people.... and then with another revaluation,it felt it MUST gave been someone else.

It also did a good job of making the mother's seem real... their daily grind of children with varying special needs,the exhaustion of it all.

All round a book I'll be recommending for a while.

This was absolutely gripping and fantastically written!
It kept me on edge and guessing until the end. I won't give too much away as I don't want to spoil anything, but if you love a good family-courtroom-thriller-drama then please put it on to your TBR right now! I'd recommend going in blind and savouring this story.
Buzz words: courtroom drama, autism and treatments, family, relationships, thriller
I'm going to pick up anything else Angie Kim is going to come up with.

Thank you so much FSG books @fsgbooks and Netgalley for providing me with an eARC.

love this book, characters were well developed. The plot had many twist and turns. Great read., cannot wait for the next book..

Angie Kim has written a chilling thriller.A courtroom drama a horrible tragedy involving all those involved in this trial .Autisim searching for cures desperate parents.We are given a glimpse of the lives of these families.This is so tense emotional so well written an author to watch.Highly recommend was drawn in couldn’t put down.#netgalley #Miracle Creek #Fsg

This is an extraordinary novel. I read it in one swoop, unable to put it down. Yes, it's a courtroom drama, but to call it that is to diminish the scope and beauty of this story. I can't think of the last time I read a novel written with such profound empathy - for the mothers of autistic children, for immigrant parents who sacrifice so much for their children and for the children who suffer so much from that very act of love, for the complications of marriage and how we lie to protect those we love (and sometimes ourselves) and tell the truth knowing it will bring pain. Angie Kim has created characters so real and so complicated, they will break your heart. Can't recommend this one highly enough!

"My husband asked me to lie. Not a big lie. He probably didn’t even consider it a lie, and neither did I, at first . . .

In rural Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine—a pressurized oxygen chamber that patients enter for therapeutic “dives” with the hopes of curing issues like autism or infertility. But when the Miracle Submarine mysteriously explodes, killing two people, a dramatic murder trial upends the Yoos’ small community."

Once I found out this was a book similar to a Jodi Picoult novel I just had to read it... I was not disappointed! It was such a compelling and powerful read, I just couldn't put it down. It's a courtroom drama thriller that really pulls on your emotions. Have a box of Kleenex by you when you read this one!

Thanks to #Netagalley for this ARC of #MiracleCreek by by Angie Kim
Pub Date: 16 Apr 2019

At Miracle Creek, families with sick loved ones come searching for a miracle. But when the miracle medical treatment turns tragic after an explosion, families are left wondering how this could have happened.

From beginning to end, Miracle Creek keeps you guessing. Each time you think the mystery is solved, a new detail emerges that has you second-guessing once more. While this may sound like a frustrating journey, Angie Kim manages to unravel this mystery with such detail and care that it feels completely natural. I did not want to put the book down. I found myself surprised by the final reveal, but still feeling like it made total sense. The eventual ending left me completely satisfied, which is a rare occurrence. My only criticism would be that sometimes the details were overwhelming.

This was clearly well-researched and well-planned. Beyond the overall mystery, I appreciated the novel's attention to other issues including familial relationships, the joys and struggles of parents, and mental illness. This definitely covers a variety of topics but never feels like it's shoving ideas at you. I am looking forward to future novels from this author.

Thanks FSG & NetGalley for the ARC!

Quick Summary: A couple owns & runs a hyperbaric chamber for people with health issues & when it explodes, we see the truth come out throughout the story of the trial.

This was quite the mystery to find out who created this explosion, which resulted in deaths & many people harmed - mentally and physically.

The courtroom action was the most interesting part to me in the story. Other times, the story got really long & complicated with all the characters & seemed to drag on in areas.

There's also an interesting view on the family who runs the HBOT as we see culture come into play & just the dynamics of a couple with a teenager daughter & the relationships they have.

In the end, I had to keep on reading to find out the truth on what happened because just when you think one person is the cause, you dig a little deeper into the mystery.

Read if you enjoy a mystery - or if you are intrigued by hyperbaric therapy, or if you are involved in the autistic therapies or know anyone with dealing with autism.

Is there an option for 10/5 stars?

Two victims killed in a fire. Suspect is one of the victim's mother whose child has autism.

I love courtroom drama. This one was brilliant! I hung on to every word. Pondered on every argument and tried hard reading between the lines. The case and story were well built and plotted, with the right amount of tension and suspense.

Every character was perfectly developed. They're all so relatable - their anger, heartaches, shame, guilt, frustrations, all of them, so flawed, so human.

So who was it who had the heart to commit such an unforgivable, heinous crime??? I thought I knew all along what exactly happened, only to realize, dang, I was wrong!

I was so committed in solving the case I tried locking myself away from everything and everyone. This book was that good.

Besides the page-turning plot, relevant issues like challenges of being an immigrant and a parent of special needs children, discrimination, racism were also brought to focus, and written unbiasedly!

This is definitely going to be one of my top reads of the year. Will be keeping an eye out for more of Angie Kim's works! I can't believe this is her debut!

Thank you Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for a free eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review! All opinions are my own.

A full review will be posted on my blog and Goodreads, and shared on Twitter and Litsy closer to publication day.

Angie Kim......put her on your author radar. This book is meticulously written with well developed characters and a detailed and interesting plot, that is filled with twists and turns. Angie Kim’s attention to detail is impressive. The reader has a lot to absorb but is never lost. She layers and builds without confusion. As you read this novel, you are forced to contemplate who, what, when? My reviews reflect my opinion of the read and do not describe details of the book. Those can be obtained by reading a synopsis on the inside cover. I enjoyed this book and I thank Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this ARC.

An exceptional book. It's thrillingly plot-driven, so suspenseful, expertly crafted to keep pulling you forward -- you won't be able to turn the pages fast enough. And at the same time it's so intelligent and compassionate about every character. No one in this story is simply good or bad. Everyone is a mix of both. The story makes compelling moral arguments about the random assignment of guilt, the injustice of the justice system, the desperate shame and love of parenthood, and the responsibilities members of a community have to each other. I'm blown away by Angie Kim's talent and vision. Wow.

'Did he think so much had already happened that nothing more could? But life doesn’t work like that. Tragedies don’t inoculate you against further tragedies, and misfortune doesn’t get sprinkled out in fair proportions; bad things get hurled at you in clumps and batches, unmanageable and messy. How could he not know that, after everything we’d been through?'

This is a wonderfully written courtroom drama that not only tugged my emotional strings but had its twist at the end. Miracle Creek, Virginia, Young and Pak Yoo run an experimental medical treatment device known as the Miracle Submarine (pressurized oxygen chamber) that gives new hope to patients with varied maladies. All seems to be going swimmingly, until an explosion kills two patients within the chamber during a power outage. Others are also left with serious injuries. A trial asks, who had a reason to murder the victims because one thing is becoming more certain, it wasn’t an accident.

Young and Pak Yoo are Korean immigrants, striving for success in America. Pak had lived without his family at first, knows all about sacrificie and struggle. Surely he had more than his fair share of hardship, yet he should have known better than, on that fateful day, to ask “What could go wrong?” as if like a command, because to the universe, it’s a challenge. On opening day with all the fresh faces of hope never could those patients, and mothers have fathomed what tragedy awaited them all. With a daughter of their own about to head to off college, are they capable of committing murders for insurance money? Especially when Pak himself and their daughter Mary were also injured? Then again, why weren’t the Yoo’s present when everything went wrong? Why did they leave the patients unattended? It seems everyone has secrets, the distance between Mary and Young has been widening for a long time, like Pak says ‘you always think the worst of her’ but could she be right? Since the accident, she is much worse, but there were things before, like her daughter ignoring her, being too good to help with cooking, cleaning. This better American life didn’t include Mary stooping to that, oh no, that was all on Young’s shoulders. Now her daughter is healing, but something inside of her is tormented.

The trial seems to be focused on Elizabeth ( the defendant) mother of Henry, now deceased, with a list of disorders from Autism Spectrum to OCD. The most ‘manageable’ child of all the patients with disabilities yet the most overwhelmed, resentful, exasperated mother who everyone could see was cracking. It is true, she sometimes hurt him, it is also true she pretended to be sick and went to ‘have a smoke’ instead when the explosion happened. Is it wrong that Young feels relief that Elizabeth is the focus of the people’s fury, that she is absorbing all of the blame? What about Pak? Yes, he made a mistake, but whether he was there or not, it still would have happened, surely he can’t be blamed? Right? He can’t see everything he and his wife worked so hard for as immigrants, all to give Mary opportunity in America disappear! They need that insurance money desperately, or they won’t survive. Matt is called to witness, not so surprising as he understands better than anyone about hyperbarics, holding an M.D. as he does and he was present, after all, a patient himself, taking part in the dives to help with his infertility. He can explain how the ‘submarine’ works, to the court, the jury. He has his own deceptions to hide from his wife Janine, riveted by his answers on the stand. All of this is stirring up weeks he would rather forget, but why?

More than anything, this story is a chain of events, if you remove one action, could the outcome have been different? Is there really just one person to pin everything on or are so many others accountable? There are many roads to guilt, and it seems here every character is on one. Is the truth always the only choice? Are lies as ruinous as facing up to one’s sins? There is a lot to think about here and depending on who you ask about just such a scenario, you’ll get a different answer. Elizabeth’s situation, and Henry’s, was a very difficult read for me. I’m still gutted! This was a very touchingn novel and I look forward to Angie Kim’s next! Not all courtroom dramas can hold my attention, but Miracle Creek balanced what lead up to the trial and the aftermath perfectly.

Publication Date: April 16, 2019

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Sarah Crichton Books