KoreaNovels.com by Whalen Wehry

"Seoul" Novel Exerpts (38 pages)

�Here�s to your part in the glory of empire,� said the tall old Korean with a white mustache, lifting a cup. He wore the uniform of a Japanese Army colonel.

Corean Dusk Excerpts (34 pages)

At mid-morning on Sunday, irritably sipping coffee on the porch of his home, he spotted Kwan Il, Pak, Mun and three posang walking rapidly towards him from a shed and he knew from the compradore�s expression that something was terribly amiss.

Corean Dawn Excerpts (13 pages)

�Iii-gu! Demons dance on the ground at my very feet,� thought the prefect. �Or perhaps it�s the ghosts of countless ancestors, stirring in their tombs wailing at him and the contaminating approach of other barbarians.�

"Corean Dawn" novel synopsis

A monumental story of a Westerner�s search for belonging as the Yi Dynasty struggles for survival! One man pits his will against kingdom upheavals as international clashes set the stage for this ambitious novel of Korea as explosive, fast-paced events sweep and are driven by a colorful cast of larger-than-life characters. Looming near and often in them is Timothy Tubert, an orphaned American youth stranded during battle in Chaoshien, the old Corea of the Yi Dynasty. At times by choice and at times by fate, Tubert's struggles to find meaning and a place for himself marks a new chapter in epic English language novels about the orient. By royal decree, this unique Westerner is declared to be a sovereign, untouchable state onto himself. Rarely does a book of any era in any language so powerfully span the gamut of and intercultural human spirit and emotions. Ignorance, innocence, murder, sex, greed, hope and fear, treachery and tragedy all intertwine to make this a monumental adventure story told against a background of a tottering dynasty trying to hold treaty powers at bay. Here is a story of violent Chinese, deadly Japanese, well-intentioned missionaries, ruthless smugglers, intriguing Coreans, courageous tiger hunters, an exotic black mistress and the beautiful Corean girl who becomes the wife of a foreign devil, all stampeding at once in a towering pageant of life. This is a bawdy, stirring, fictionalized saga of Chaoshien, old Corea, a fascinating land the world would pay dearly for not knowing about decades later and a land which today enchants international travelers and threatens the international community.

"Corean Dusk" novel synopsis

Butch Wehry continues his majestic saga of Korea with the characters from COREA DAWN in COREA DUSK, adding new characters encountering the thrill and mysticism and intrigues of the old Kingdom as Timothy Tubert, at the request of the royal couple, accompanies forces south to put down the Tonghak rebellion during the Sino-Corean War. Readers are present when the Corean queen is slaughtered and accompany him by the king�s request to the Japanese-Russo War in Pyongyang at last settles foreign supremacy that causes the end of the 500 year-old dynasty and the loss of Tubert�s beloved trading station in Inchon. They accompany him as he transports supplies to his new home at the American concession operated gold mines in North Corea and the heartbreak of his Corean wife being bayoneted by Japanese during a peaceful protest march. After nearly half a century in Corea, after foreign powers leave and the Japanese burn the United States treaty with Chaoshien, a near-broken Tubert is about to leave on a steamer when an old voice, his old friend Pak, calls to him. They disappear into the northern mountains of their youth to fight the Japanese occupation and takeover as the old dynasty and land are annexed as a Japanese province. This novel is more violent than the first.

"Seoul" novel synopsis

For anyone who has experienced Korea in this century, Whalen M. Wehry's book SEOUL, A Novel of Korea, may be a part of you. The work is the former Pacific Stars and Stripes Korea News Bureau chief's third historical novel of Korea.