Maurene Goo Books in Order

Maurene Goo was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Glendale, California, in a Korean-American family and a part of Southern California that still shapes so much of her fiction. She has described a childhood full of cousins, books, and the everyday details of Korean-American life, long before she ever saw many stories like her own on the page.

She came to writing through reading first.

When she was younger, journalism seemed like one of the few jobs a person could have if they loved words, and her mother worked as a journalist, so that path made sense. Goo studied communication at UC San Diego, with a minor in English literature, but college also helped her figure out that hard news was not really her lane. What kept pulling her back was fiction, especially the chance to build a whole emotional world instead of reporting on one.

She later earned a master's in publishing, writing, and literature from Emerson College. Around that time she worked in bookstores, then in textbook and art-book publishing, which gave her a practical view of how books get made. A writing sample she developed for school eventually grew into Since You Asked..., her 2013 debut, a sharp high school story about Holly Kim, a school paper mishap, and the pressure of fitting in without giving up your own voice.

That mix of humor, heart, and social messiness became a through line.

Goo writes funny, romantic, character-first stories about girls who are smart, stubborn, a little chaotic, and still figuring themselves out. In I Believe in a Thing Called Love, Desi Lee uses K-drama logic to solve her terrible luck in romance. In The Way You Make Me Feel, prank-loving Clara Shin ends up working on her father's food truck for the summer. Readers tend to come to these books for the banter and crushes, then stay for the family dynamics, friendship, and emotional honesty underneath all the comedy.

She has kept widening the frame without losing that voice. Somewhere Only We Know sends a K-pop star and a teen reporter across Hong Kong for one long, life-changing night. Throwback uses time travel to dig into mother-daughter tension, immigration, and the things one generation hands to the next. Goo also brought her sensibility to Marvel's Silk, writing Cindy Moon as both superhero and reporter. Then, with One & Only, she moved into adult fiction with a love story about fate, family secrets, and whether finding the right person is the same thing as choosing them.

Across all of these books, certain interests keep showing up: Korean-American identity, Los Angeles and its orbit, food, ambition, romance, and families that are loving but never simple. Her characters often want connection and independence at the same time, and that push and pull is where a lot of her stories get their spark.

Goo now lives and writes in Los Angeles with her husband, son, and two cats. She has said she likes deadlines more than romantic ideas about waiting for inspiration, which feels right for a writer whose novels read breezily but are built with real care.