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Extract: Jaded by Ela Lee

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12 of the most anticipated debut books of 2024

Jaded

‘An ambitious gut-punch of a novel’ Bobby Palmer, author of Isaac and the Egg 
' So nuanced, assured, and utterly devastating ' Layne Fargo, author of The Favourites 
‘Will have you hooked until the last page’ Cecile Pin, author of Wandering Souls 
 
She did everything right. So why did it go so wrong? 
 
Men like him – in positions of power who watched the wheels of suppression turn from a distance, standing by and doing nothing – were the protectors of the broken system. 
 
They’re the fuel that made the fire burn. 
 
Jade is everything she ever wanted to be. Successful lawyer. Dutiful daughter. Beloved girlfriend. Loyal friend. Until one night, something terrible happens after a work event, and she starts to wonder if she really wants to be the person she’s become. 
 
She’s learned to laugh when she’s felt like crying, opted to be invisible when she wanted to speak up and changed her identity to please people. 
 
But now Jade has a decision to make. 
 
Protect her job and reputation or expose the truth and face the consequences? 
 
READERS LOVE JADED: 
 
'I loved Jade. Rooting for her felt like rooting for myself' 
'One of the most moving books I’ve ever read’ 
‘I urge everyone to read this'

Ela Lee is a remarkable new voice in fiction. I tore through JADED – it made me laugh, cry and really bloody furious

JADED is a thoughtful, hard-hitting exploration of race, identity, and the rippling effects of sexual assault. Ela Lee writes with an urgency and clarity that will have you hooked until the last page.

A raw, compulsive and nuanced novel about identity, race and consent

This raw, dark novel explores racism, class and sexism and you'll want to savour every word on every page

Ela Lee is an electrifying new voice, and this is an ambitious gut-punch of a novel. Like I May Destroy You meets Industry, it’s a witty, nuanced and thought-provoking interrogation of attitudes towards race, power and consent

Bobby Palmer, author of ISAAC AND THE EGG

Jaded is so nuanced, assured, and utterly devastating it’s hard to believe it’s Ela Lee’s debut. Lee fearlessly takes on the impossible, infuriating double standards women are held to in our society, and undeniable feminine rage simmers under every sentence of her expertly crafted prose

Wonderfully multi-faceted and emotionally compelling

Jaded is a sharp, bold and compulsively readable story of power, money, sex and survival. Ela Lee writes with utter clarity and heartbreaking insight about the cost of survival in cut-throat corporate environments and about the gray space between complicity and compromise. Urgent and necessary, this is a book that will take up space in your heart and mind long after the last page

Cecilia Rabess, author of EVERYTHING’S FINE

Bold ... A tightly-wound, claustrophobic unravelling of one woman that is one of the year’s most thoughtful reads

Brutal but sadly realistic, JADED is a clarion call against the resounding silence of corporate law which has gone untouched and unmoved by #metoo. Quietly devastating

Ela Lee has crafted a novel that's compulsive, rousing and raw. JADED is a dizzying debut about power, race, consent, entitlement, and so much more

A gripping read - in parts harrowing and uncomfortable, but also brilliantly empowering. And underneath it all, a love letter to female friendship. Highly recommended!

A sensitive, nuanced and compelling exploration of trauma, race, identity and consent. Ela Lee is a writer to watch.

JADED is brilliant and funny and moving all at once. I loved how Ela used the assault to crack open all the faultlines in Jade’s life, with Kit and with her work and with her parents. Despite the heartbreak, such violence can also show us our own strength and beauty

Jaded is a bold, important novel about privilege and power. It doesn’t shy away from hard truths. A wonderful thing, when fiction has the courage to leave the reader with questions, thoughts, and feelings, instead of giving simplified answers

An extremely accomplished debut that covers a difficult topic, at times delicately, at times unflinchingly, and always accessible. We have either been this Jade or know someone like Jade, and the way Ela builds her narrative is expertly done

JADED is that rarest of things: a compelling page-turner that is also unafraid to challenge. With its nuanced and complex exploration of consent portrayed through the lens of gender, race and class, it is as painfully urgent as it is timeless

Ela Lee was born in 1995 and is a British-Korean-Turkish writer. She studied Law at the University of Oxford and went on to practise as a City lawyer. In 2021, during the global pandemic, Ela began work on her debut novel, JADED, which explores themes of consent, race, and identity. She lives in London, with her partner and their mini Aussie Shepherd.

For fans of The List, Prima Facie, Queenie and I May Destroy You, discover the debut novel that readers describe as a timely, must-read novel. 
 
‘Jade isn't even my real name. Jade began as my Starbucks name, because all children of immigrants have a Starbucks name.' 
 
Jade has become everything she ever wanted to be. 
 
Successful lawyer. Dutiful daughter. Beloved girlfriend. Loyal friend. 
 
Until one night, something terrible happens after a work event, and she starts to wonder if she really wants to be the person she’s become. 
 
She’s learned to laugh when she’s felt like crying, opted to be invisible when she wanted to speak up and changed her identity to please people. But now Jade has to make a decision for herself. The question is, which is the right one? 
 
This searing novel explores the strength we find in female friendship, the hope that lights up the dark moments and recovery that’s far from linear, and will leave you asking yourself: what would you have done in Jade’s situation?

Ela Lee

Minbak is an absolutely brilliant novel that had me utterly engrossed. An incredible story of love, conflict and heartbreak across three generations, from South Korea to London. This is the story of a hidden history — of a family and a country — being dragged into the light, and of what it means to both lose a home and remake one. A beautiful and captivating novel that I wholeheartedly recommend!

Lyrical and devastating, MINBAK is a flawless meditation on memory, love and misunderstanding. Destined to be a modern classic

A beautiful, tender story which shows the resilience of the human spirit

A poignant novel by a writer of great skill

It takes great skill to expose the dark and unsettling with a light and tender touch. Minbak is a story of family, displacement, and forgiveness that’s richly layered, deeply felt, and as lyrical as it is propulsive

Minbak aches with the unspeakable nature of loss. Deeply moving and graceful, it shines light on a secret slice of Korea’s history, gradually unveiling the secrets that bind—and divide—three generations

Juhea Kim, internationally bestselling author of Beasts of a Little Land and City of Night Birds

A story of profound loss across three generations of Korean women, paradoxically told with a rich sense of presence and history. Ela Lee proves herself a master storyteller

Minbak is a powerful, heartrending family saga that traces the long shadow of grief against the backdrop of Korea’s paper orphans. Lee writes with a quiet, aching honesty that remained with me long after I turned the final page

Minbak is one of those novels that challenges you to see beyond what is front of you, examining the bonds of family, the consequences of sacrifice and pride and shows you that life is a series of decisions, not all of which are within our control. This is a truly gripping and beautiful book that I’ll be thinking about for a long, long time

A beautifully written and gorgeous novel about motherhood, generational trauma, and the long shadow of a nation’s hidden history. Through the intertwined lives of a mother, daughter, and grandmother, this moving story traces how silence shapes fate and how love endures through our choice to forgive each and every day

Minbak is a poignant novel about grief, sacrifice, and motherhood. In tender yet incisive prose, Ela Lee offers us a portrait of the many ways three generations of women fold and shape themselves around the ones they love, the secrets they keep out of a misguided instinct to protect one another, and the love that serves as a throughline despite trauma and heartbreak. It is also an indictment of American imperialist structures, and, most importantly, the economic, sociocultural, and capitalist forces that facilitated the foreign adoptions of hundreds of thousands of Korean children. Lee's story is a gripping one; it makes it impossible for us to look away

A novel of secrets, love and grief, it cements Lee as a writer to follow

Compelling, heartbreaking and beautifully written

Ela Lee’s second novel is a beautifully written, intergenerational story about hidden trauma and the mistakes we make when trying to protect the people we love, tying the painful secret of a single family to a broader reckoning with the systematic exploitation of the stigma that women and girls face when deviating from social norms

Eve Chung, bestselling author of The Daughters of Shandong

Minbak is a tender portrayal of women across three generations grappling with memory, intergenerational trauma, and how to love through impossible situations. Against the fascinating backdrop of South Korea’s transition to democracy, Ela Lee weaves a poignant family saga not just of seeking a home, but of making a home—whether through the community of a minbak, or through piecing together a fractured family. Minbak will leave you wanting to call your mother and your grandmother in order to understand them just a little more

Allison King, author of The Phoenix Pencil Company

Condé Nast Traveller, *Summer Reads of 2026*

The night the baby without a surname was born, the army rolled into his mother’s town 
 
Incheon, South Korea, 1985. The country is revolting against a dictatorship, but in the local boarding-house, the chaos inside is only just beginning. When Hana is pulled from school to work in her family’s minbak, all she wants is to escape her small town. When she finally does, she leaves as an exile, a ruin, or a martyr, depending on who you ask. Her mother Youngia is left behind with the torment of both of their decisions. 
 
London, 2008. Ada knows little about her mother, Hana. When tragedy hits, Hana has no choice but to move her daughter and ailing mother into a single room and turn the rest of their home into a minbak. As the past collides with the present, Ada is determined to unearth her mother’s secrets. But her obsession will lead to a discovery that unravels not just her family’s dark past, but that of an entire country’s. 
 
From Korea’s industrial estates to London’s suburbs, the three women cross continents and generations to find truth, forgiveness and compassion. 
 
‘Had me utterly engrossed. An incredible story of love, conflict and heartbreak.’ Rosie Price 
 
‘Lyrical and devastating MINBAK is a flawless meditation on memory, love and misunderstanding.’ Ella King 
 
‘A poignant and precise novel by a writer of great skill.’ Nicola Dinan

Ela Lee

Books by Ela Lee

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Extract: Jaded by Ela Lee

12 of the most anticipated debut books of 2024

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