From the opening pages of Miracle Creek, Angie Kim creates an intense atmosphere of foreboding and suspense, building swiftly to the event that triggers the rest of her debut novel, unraveling so many lives and lies ... This novel is a stunner, emotionally packed, with separate characters delivering internal plot twists and turns. Part family drama, part trial drama, part culture war drama—digging into sensitive topics like parenthood, immigration, infertility, and alternative therapy—this novel is all secrets, secrets, secrets. In multiple narratives, we see events from different points of view as they unfold, or as they are recalled, or through statements and mental asides during testimony. It’s dense with story lines but never confusing; the reader turns pages eagerly, waiting, wondering what could possibly happen next and how it will all resolve ... One idea Kim explores, under-represented in popular culture, is the cost, psychic and spiritual, of leaving one’s homeland to pursue dreams or a 'better' future in the United States. Kim does a marvelous job in excavating the emotional toll of this move ... Angie Kim gives the reader a supremely masterful unraveling in this tense, psychologically astute, emotionally riveting, suspense-filled literary thriller.

While the courtroom scenes and plot pyrotechnics are sure to delight readers of legal thrillers and mysteries, at its heart, Miracle Creek is a deeply moving story about parents and the lengths they will go for their children. Several characters reflect on the challenges of caring for special-needs children with remarkable, occasionally brutal, honesty ... Some may find the novel’s conclusion overly reliant on memories and secrets jarred loose at just the right time. But more likely, readers will be riveted by the book’s genre-bending structure and superb pace ... a stunning debut.

As people descend from 'hero to murderer in an hour,' Miracle Creek becomes a fascinating study of the malleability of truth in the courtroom. For the reader, learning the killer’s identity matters less than parsing the moral compromises each character makes to guard his or her own version of truth ... The interior life of the characters gives Miracle Creek depth ... The unique perspectives in Miracle Creek aren’t matched by an equally daring narrative style. Kim is capable of striking descriptions, but for the most part, she doesn’t take any risks. Still, Miracle Creek is a brave novel that challenges assumptions of reality.

Angie Kim has created a narrative arc in her debut novel, Miracle Creek, that is unique in the annals of mystery ... Author Kim, an attorney by trade, does the courtroom drama exceptionally well. She brings more nuance to the proceedings than the 15 minutes allotted in a typical Law and Order episode, but manages the police-procedural effect by casting doubt on the assumptions readers made just a few pages earlier ... In the end, Miracle Creek proves to be not so much a whodunit as an existential reflection on the choices people make.

Powerful courtroom scenes invite comparisons to Scott Turow, but Kim’s nuanced exploration of guilt, resentment, maternal love, and multifaceted justice may have stronger appeal for readers drawn to the Shakespearean tragedies in Chris Bohjalian’s Midwives (1997) and William Landay’s Defending Jacob (2012).

This is a complicated and unusual story—though when you are reading it, it will all seem smooth as silk ... With so many complications and loose ends, one of the miracles of the novel is that the author ties it all together and arrives at a deeply satisfying—though not easy or sentimental—ending ... Intricate plotting and courtroom theatrics, combined with moving insight into parenting special needs children and the psychology of immigrants, make this book both a learning experience and a page-turner. Should be huge.

...[a] stand-out, twisty debut ... Kim, a former lawyer, clearly knows her stuff, and though the level of procedural detail is sometimes unwieldy, nonetheless what emerges is a masterfully plotted novel about the joys and pains of motherhood, the trick mirror nature of truth, and the unforgiving nature of justice.