Mi-ae Seo Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Mi-ae Seo Korean is an author from Seoul that has made her name with her debut English novel “The Only Child.” She was born in Punggi but her family moved to the capital when she was eight and hence all she knows is the city. She fell in love with mystery novels and would voraciously devour any type of mystery she could find at the library and at home. In college, she started writing poetry and by the time she was twenty, she was writing award-winning poetry. Once she graduated from college, she got a job as a screenplay and broadcasting writer while writing mystery novels on the side. Between 1994 and 2005, she decided to focus on screenplays while she wrote her fiction as short stories. In the year 2000, she wrote “My Beautiful Girl, Mary,” a Korean animation that was the winner of the 26th Annecy International Animated Film Festival’s Best Feature Fil Grand Prix Award. Her play “30 Ways To Kill Your Husband” was published in 2006 and was the winner of the Annual Spring Literary Contest and remains a bestseller years later. Several of her short fiction works have also been adapted into movies and TV dramas.

Mi-ae Seo usually does a lot of research from articles, newspapers, online and with subject matter experts. In writing her novels, she has consulted the police and the scientific investigation of Korea when she wrote “The Garden of a Doll.” The novel that was inspired by a famous Korean serial killer named Yu Yeongcheol was the winner of the Korean Mystery Award. Her debut English novel “The Only Child” was published in 2010 and was translated into English in 2020 introducing the author to the English-speaking world. Seo also has several novels set to be translated into English including “The Night Your Star Disappeared” and “Arin’s Eyes.”

Mi-ae Seo “The Only Child” is a thriller story that opens to a psychologist interviewing a famous serial killer whose daughter is also exhibiting bizarre behavior. The FBI trained criminal psychologist Seonkyeong is surprised when Yi Byeongdo one of the most famous serial killers in Seoul agrees to an interview with her. He had refused to give any interviews and this was one of her biggest opportunities to get everything she could. In the meantime, Jaeseong her workaholic husband took back his daughter after her grandparents died in a freak fire incident. The child had been living with her maternal grandparents ever since his wife died. While Seonkyeong welcomes the child with open arms, she soon notices that there is something wrong. She throws violent tantrums and goes from warm to cold in an instant. Seon is unsure of what to do given that she becomes a sweet child once her father comes back home. As she comes to know the serial killer and his daughter, it becomes clear that the two share a lot of similarities. Byeongdo is a brutal but handsome man that had become violent when he was rejected by his mother. While his daughter has an angelic demeanor, she had been the pawn that her mother used to hit back at their father for his desertion. His daughter is creepier though as she has all the characteristics of a future psychopath as she fights to control the house and is notably cruel to animals. What makes it worse is that she often provides Seon with false hope and since she is young, her stepmother believes that she can change, unlike her father.