Format: Paperback
Pages: 358
ISBN: 978-1-951971-33-5
Price: $22
Publication Date: September 30, 2025

Perfect Happiness

You-Jeong Jeong

With unparalleled psychological precision, master of crime and suspense fiction You-Jeong Jeong weaves a domestic nightmare centered on Yuna Shin: wife, mother, sister—and covert narcissist.

Everyone in Yuna’s life is desperate to keep her happy: her partners, parents, and terrified six-year-old daughter. Even when she’s not blaming or hitting, the threat of her mood keeps her family from bonding, touching, or even speaking long enough to realize she’s playing them against each other. But when little Jiyoo’s feverish memories of loons hint at a troubling crime, Yuna’s estranged sister and guilt-ridden husband begin to reconstruct her movements, the unexplained tragedies in Yuna’s history, and the lies she’s told for years. For the first time, Yuna’s traumatized family members will have to confront the truth of her depravity and learn that no one—no matter how young—is safe from her wrath.

After all, Yuna believes that happiness requires subtraction. And she wants nothing less than perfect happiness.

Praise for Perfect Happiness

“You-Jeong Jeong fillets the reader’s imagination with such expert precision, you’d think she wrote Perfect Happiness with a sashimi knife. This book dismembers, boils and grinds you down with its cunning brutality, as unflinching as field-dressing a fresh kill before the carcass even has a chance to cool and you finish reading.” —Clay McLeod Chapman, author of Wake Up and Open Your Eyes

“A chilling horror, a dark abyss of humanity, fast-paced and addictive . . . impossible to put down.” —J. M. Lee, author of The Investigation and Artificial Truth

“Armed with suspense, this book by You-Jeong Jeong poses the question, ‘Does true happiness exist in life?’ Once you open the first page, you cannot put it down until the very last sentence. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy tension and fear.” —Kyung-sook Shin, author of Please Look After Mom

About the Author

You-Jeong Jeong, known as South Korea’s Stephen King, is an award-winning and bestselling author of psychological thrillers and crime fiction. Her novels Seven Years of Darkness, 28, and The Good Son were selected as “Book of the Year” by major media outlets and bookstores, gaining widespread acclaim. These works have been translated and published in twenty-three countries, including the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Finland, China, Japan, and Brazil.

About the Translator

Sean Lin Halbert holds an MA in Korean literature from Seoul National University. He is the recipient of the LTI Korea Aspiring Translator Award, the Korea Times Korean Literature Translation Award, and the GKL Translation Award. He lives in Seoul with his wife and daughter and teaches at LTI Korea Translation Academy. Perfect Happiness is his sixth novel in translation.