The Red Palace by June Hur
Review of The Red Palace by June Hur
“Revenge begets revenge; the anger is unquenchable. We become the monsters we are trying to punish. Justice, however, brings closure, and that is what I want. It can only be achieved by remaining sober-minded and rational. And, in the end, it is not my place to punish the prince. It is the king’s, and only the king’s. All I can do is find enough evidence to make the truth undeniable.”
The Red Palace by June Hur (2022). Published by Feiwel & Friends.
For the past semester as a humanities graduate student, I have been conducting research on Colonial Korea. Having lived in Korea for a bit on a scholarship and experienced seeing some of the extensive historical monuments that are within the city of Seoul alone, I’ve managed to foster this lifelong devotion to learning about the country and its history.
The other week before picking this book up I actually finished the autobiography Hyegyong, who was the wife of Crown Prince Sado. Imagine my surprise when I checked this book out on a whim and discovered that it was set in that exact moment in Joseon imperial history, and the same people I had been reading about were suddenly characters.
I absolutely devoured this novel though. I finished it in less than two hours, which is a feat considering I had an OverDrive copy checked out from my local library. The writing was just so good in this one, and I felt immersed completely in the world that Hur created.
Although there were historical things and tidbits to remember, I found it fairly accessible even if someone was not as familiar with Korean history and culture in this moment of time. However, if someone can handle the prose Lady Hyegyong writes in her autobiography, it is definitely worth checking out after this novel. It was a truly tragic time to be in the imperial family at that time, and Sado’s death was unfortunate, although not directly mentioned in the novel.
Onwards with the review!
A palace nurse in the Joseon dynasty gets caught up in a murder investigation and some romance.
The year is 1758 in this novel, at the height of Joseon Korea. Our main character is Hyeon, the illegitimate daughter of the Minister of Security and a commoner. Because of the nature of that relationship, her father does not see her as an equal, and a large portion of the novel is lowkey spent exploring how she wanted to earn her father’s respect and honor through her duties.
After being educated at the Hyeminseo, where women learn how to take care of other’s health, she ends up working at the palace with her friend Ji-eun. The two of them are summoned to the Crown Prince’s quarters one night, where Hyegyong, his wife, reveals he has gone off into the night.
What happens next is out of a horror: four women, three nurses and students at the Hyeminseo, and the other a woman of the court, are violently murdered outside of the nursing school.
Hyeon heads over to the crime scene upon hearing what happened, looks at the bodies, and then discovers her mentor is being blamed for the murder. Hyeon sees her mentor as the only person who cared for her, as her relationships with both her mother and father are strained. However, in the process of snooping at the crime scene, she meets a hotshot young investigator named Eojin—he also happens to be Ji-eun’s cousin.
Thus begins a complicated dance where Eojin and Hyeon team up. He conducts his official investigations, while she gathers word from around the palace. The physician is one of the first suspects, as he was the secret husband of the court lady murdered, then people are going around the town posting signage that Prince Sado is the one behind all of this.
As they get deeper into the mystery, two more women are murdered, more suspects are thrown into the mix, and Hyeon ultimately almost gets killed herself by the prince, but that afct leads her and Eojin to realize some hidden relationships and who the actual murderer is.
The romance in this one is a slow burn. It’s obvious it’s going to come, especially considering how brash Eojin is for a man in such an era of rigid rules. The mystery story kind of reminds me of These Violent Delights but in an even more historical setting and without the Romeo and Juliet elements.
Worldbuilding is excellent in this story throughout, and Hur really knows how to get the reader hooked from the very first chapter. Hyeon is very admirable as a character and no one truly feels static throughout. There are some twists and turns, too, breaking up any repetitive nature one may find.
For those who know the unfortunate outcome of Prince Sado, it’s not really mentioned in this novel. I don’t think it needs to be brought up in Hyeon’s story, as it comes across as irrelevant once she has done her duty and testifies against him, but Prince Sado, the son of the King who can never meet his expectations, is eventually executed in 1762.
His father, unable to directly kill him due to the complex rules of Confucianism, orders his son to be put into a rice chest on a hot summer day. Sado lived for eight days inside of the rice chest before succumbing to the circumstances, passing away at the age of twenty-seven. Hyegyong was allowed to live with her son, who would become the next King, but Sado’s name was banned until his son came into rule.
The one thing that I think this book does hover on is whether it explains too much of the time period for a reader who may not be aware of what Joseon Korean etiquette and whatnot might be.
As someone who was pretty familiar with this portion of history, I found some passages to slightly take me out of the narrative flow because I felt like they were explaining too much. I understand the necessity of it though, because most people definitely aren’t going to know the paternalistic nature of the era these characters lived within and the deep rules that dictated every facet of Joseon society.
Overall Thoughts
I enjoyed this one a lot! I like how lowkey the romance elements were, as well as how Korean the entire story was throughout. it is fairly unapologetic about the history and culture, which we need more of in today’s world.
I think I’m a fan of June Hur’s writing, and will most likely check out the rest of their books sometime over the next couple of years if I have some free time.
Considering how fast I read this one, I’ll probably get through the others just as quickly if I am into their subject matter. Go check this one out at the library if you have time.
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