June Hur Books in Order

June Hur writes historical novels that mix mystery, danger, and young women trying to make sense of a world built to silence them. She was born in South Korea and grew up between South Korea, the United States, and Canada, spending much of her childhood in Canada and part of high school back in Korea. That feeling of living between places, and still looking for home, shows up again and again in her fiction.

It wasn't a straight line to writing.

As a kid, Hur has said she disliked English class and did not picture herself as a future novelist. Then she discovered Pride and Prejudice, fell hard for it, and began writing fan fiction as a teenager. She kept going for years, first through unpublished historical stories and then through the kind of books she wished she could find on the shelf, stories full of longing, secrets, and sharp social rules.

The big shift came when she started reading more deeply about Korean history, especially the Joseon period. She has described writing about Korea as part research project, part return to her own roots. After years spent writing stories set elsewhere, she found the material that would become The Silence of Bones, her debut novel, published in 2020.

That book changed everything.

Set in 1800 Joseon, The Silence of Bones follows Seol, an indentured servant drawn into a murder investigation. Readers connected with its eerie atmosphere, careful sense of place, and the way Seol has to search for truth in a society that expects obedience from her. Hur followed it with The Forest of Stolen Girls, a Jeju-set mystery about missing girls, buried memories, and family damage that never really healed. Then came The Red Palace, which pushes deeper into royal intrigue as a palace nurse and a young investigator work through a string of murders inside the court. That novel won an Edgar Award.

Her later books show she can shift tone without losing what makes her work hers. A Crane Among Wolves raises the stakes with tyranny, resistance, and a dangerous alliance. Behind Five Willows turns toward romance, letters, and forbidden books, while still keeping one foot planted in the pressures of class, censorship, and power.

Across all of these stories, a few things keep returning. Hur is interested in girls and young women who are told to stay quiet, then decide not to. She writes about fractured families, missing people, hidden records, and the cost of surviving inside rigid social rules. Her novels are tightly researched, but they do not feel like a history lesson first. They move like mysteries, and the history gives the mysteries weight.

She studied History and Literature at the University of Toronto and later worked as a library assistant in Toronto's public library system. That background makes sense once you read her books. They care about documents, memory, and the stories official history leaves out, especially when women are the ones doing the remembering. Hur now lives in Toronto with her husband and two children. She has said she can often be found writing in coffee shops, which feels right for a novelist whose work balances serious research with real narrative drive.