Luminous will be out March 11, 2025.
Signed and personalized copies now available for pre-order at Yu & Me Books (New York, NY) and The Raven Book Store (Lawrence, KS)
Prescient yet timeless, perfect for fans of Klara and the Sun and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, this highly anticipated, sweeping debut set in a unified Korea tells the story of three estranged siblings—two human, one robot—as they collide against the backdrop of a murder investigation to settle old scores and make sense of their shattered childhood.
“I once had a family. At least, the earliest version of me had a family.”
In a reunified Korea of the near future, the sun beats down on a junkyard filled with abandoned robots, broken down for parts. Eleven-year-old Ruijie sifts through the scraps, searching for a piece that might support her failing body. There among the piles of trash, something catches her eye: a robot boy—so lifelike and strange, unlike anything she’s ever seen before.
Siblings Jun and Morgan haven’t spoken for years. When they were children, their brother Yoyo disappeared suddenly, leaving behind only distant memories of his laughter and near-human warmth. Yoyo—an early prototype of a humanoid robot designed by their father—was always bound for something darker and more complex. Now Morgan makes robots for a living and is on the verge of losing control of her most important creation. Jun is a detective with the Robot Crimes Unit whose investigation is digging up truths that want to stay buried. And whether they like it or not, Ruijie’s discovery will thrust their family back together in ways they could have never imagined.
At once a thrilling work of speculative fiction and a poignant exploration of what it really means to be human, Luminous is an unforgettably brilliant debut.
Select early praise for Luminous
Named a 2025 Most Anticipated title by Debutiful, Electric Lit, Geek Girl Authority, Lit Hub, Ms. Magazine, Publishers Weekly, and more
“This momentous tour de force overtops existing works on robots by leaps and bounds, approaching the subject with a subtlety that allows readers to focus on the effects robots are sure to have in the future.”—Library Journal ★ & SFF Pick of the Month
“The speculative world Park creates feels remarkably robust: The robot revolution mirrors the way smartphones fundamentally altered modern life in less than a decade and the post-war landscape erupts with familiar tensions around immigrants, refugees, class, civility, violence, and security.”—Kirkus ★
“Sinister charm exudes from this android-filled mystery…With Ishiguro-esque precision, Park dissects sentience and reality, as well as love and death. This lustrous, challenging work will reward readers who stick with it.”—Publishers Weekly
“It’s a cold stunner of a novel. Park masterfully balances complex characters in a very creative world. The family dynamics in this future-tinged novel are brilliantly written.”—Debutiful
“[Luminous] is a spectacular debut, taking place in a thoroughly imagined, vividly written future. Harrowing but full of heart, a work of enormous ambition and brilliance with an ending that fully justifies the title and brought me to tears.”—Karen Joy Fowler, New York Times bestselling author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
“Luminous is warm, expansive, and particular. Park renders the intersection between family and technology with wit and philosophical depth, but ultimately this is just incredibly exciting to read. It’s utterly beautiful.”—Raven Leilani, bestselling author of Luster
“Inventive, rollicking, and poetic, Luminous is a future classic novel about robots that reveals itself to be profoundly, beautifully human.”—Juhea Kim, author of Beasts of a Little Land
“Luminous is full of complex characters, damaged and broken and beautiful. It’s a novel full of pleasures, big and small, gorgeous sentences from which Park weaves a rich, layered story of family and work, of history and speculation, of Korea, past, present and future.”—Charles Yu, author of the National Book Award Winner Interior Chinatown
“Wildly and, yes, luminously emotional.”—Matt Haig, New York Times-bestselling author of The Midnight Library
“Searching and masterful, Park’s Luminous engrossed me completely. Each broken robot, child, and warrior takes the elusive promise of family to a whole new level. I was honestly blown away.”—Sierra Greer, author of Annie Bot