Book Review: Behind Five Willows by June Hur

Behind Five Willows is a Joseon-era Korean retelling of Pride and Prejudice by June Hur. It takes place during the time of the Marriage Edict and Munchebanjeong. The Marriage Edict required all spinsters to marry by a certain deadline, and Munchebanjeong was a policy that destroyed novels and other ideas that weren’t from Joseon, such as Catholicism or Anti-Confucianism.

I went into this not knowing about either policy, and there is a brief explanation at the beginning and a more in-depth explanation of the policies at the end of the book. Both policies really set the scene for the rest of the story, which follows Haewon (the heroine) and Lord Yu Seojun (the hero) as the Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy of the story.

Behind Five Willows follows Pride and Prejudice loosely, so while you will recognize some classic Jane Austen tropes, it does stand up on its own. Haewon and her two sisters need to marry well, but while they are genteel, they are far from the upper reaches of society, and Lord Yu is from a high-ranking family with ties to royalty.

Lord Yu, however, hides a secret; he is one of the famed authors, Black Lotus, of novels which are now banned from circulation, and in public, he is a huge proponent of morals and perfection; in private, he is practically a traitor to the King.

Haewon, to help earn money for her family, transcribes the forbidden texts for a lending library and is one of the most sought-after transcribers, named Magpie. You learn that Magpie and Black Lotus have corresponded with each other for months, neither knowing the real identity of the other.

I don’t want to go into too much further detail, otherwise I’ll get into spoilers, but it was highly enjoyable, and I honestly loved learning about the history around this era. You still had the high expectations of morality and chastity that you find in Regency Era novels, and the romantic yearning between what feels like a forbidden love.

If you would like a clean, standalone novel filled with intrigue and yearning, you should check out Behind Five Willows!

5 out of 5 stars for me. I received this book for free through NetGalley as an advanced read copy and am freely giving my review. I honestly loved this book enough to preorder the hard copy.

You can find it here: https://amzn.to/4eFOJCa