Stone Angels
Helena Rho
2025
In Stone Angels, Angelina Lee finds herself in a difficult place, as she is newly divorced, grieving the sudden loss of her mother, and seeking a sense of identity in Seoul, a city that feels more foreign than familiar. As she wrestles with loneliness and culture shock, an encounter with a long-lost relative reveals a devastating family secret: her mother once had an older sister, Sunyuh, who vanished under the Japanese occupation during World War II. Determined to understand the mysterious silence around her aunt’s fate and how it connects to her mother’s suicide, Angelina begins an emotional journey across time and continents. Along the way, she finds herself entangled with people from her past and present, including a persistent Japanese American journalist who may hold more answers than she expects. Told through the interwoven voices of Angelina, her mother, and Sunyuh, the novel uncovers layers of generational trauma, hidden histories, and personal reinvention.
The novel explores themes of grief, identity, and the invisible threads that bind mothers and daughters across generations. With lyrical prose and emotional precision, Helena Rho confronts the long shadow of wartime trauma, particularly the buried legacy of Korean comfort women, while offering a meditation on the complexity of heritage, memory, and healing. She confronts the historical silence on this contentious period. Through its bold, determined female characters, Stone Angels offers a hopeful vision of second chances at connection, truth, and love.
About the Author:
Helena Rho is a Korean American writer and former pediatrician whose work explores identity, loss, and generational healing. A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, she is also the author of American Seoul: A Memoir, which chronicles her experiences navigating bicultural identity, family expectations, and personal reinvention. Before turning to writing full-time, Rho served as an assistant professor of pediatrics and practiced at top-ranked institutions including the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Johns Hopkins Hospital. Stone Angels is her debut novel, inspired by her fascination with Korean history and the resilience of women across generations. She lives steeped in the cultural worlds she writes about, with a love for K-dramas, green tea, and the haenyeo divers of Jeju Island.