My Summer in Seoul

By: Rachel Van Dyken

Narrated by: Pun Bandhu, Kelsey Navarro

Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's summary

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Rachel Van Dyken comes a standalone new adult romance set in the competitive world of K-pop.

It’s not all K-dramas and happily ever afters.

Intern with Korea’s number one record label? Yes, please.
Find out there’s a huge scandal I need to help “manage” … not so much.
Add in the fact that I don’t recognize the “superstars” of the label and think they’re interns …
And my dream job quickly becomes more of a nightmare.

But I’m in Seoul, the one place that is beginning to feel more and more like home …
Except it isn’t home, and the drama surrounding the biggest K-pop group in the world, SWT, is consuming my every moment.
Spoiler alert. They hate me.
Everything I do is wrong: wrong clothes, wrong honorifics, wrong manners.
Till the leader of SWT takes pity on me.
But pity is dangerous when it comes from someone as beautiful as him.

Every SWT member is gorgeous, perfect, and cultivated to be an idol … lethal to a girl’s heart.
And sanity.
But fame plus a perfect face and voice don’t equal an easy life. As their comeback nears, the stakes rise higher.
Suicide watch …
Angry fans …
Threats …

All I want to do is survive.
But the price for survival might mean losing my heart.
And like a character in a K-drama, I’m not sure if there will be an actual happily ever after …
Or simply a lesson learned.

©2022 Rachel Van Dyken (P)2022 Blackstone Publishing

Great Read

My Summer in Seoul (My Summer in Seoul #1) was a great read by Rachel Van Dyken. Grace finds herself as an intern with Korea's number one record label. Unfortunately there is a huge scandal that she needs to help manage. Her dream job quickly becomes a nightmare. Unfortunately the drama surrounding the biggest K-pop group in the world, SWT, is consuming her whole life. As their comeback looms closer, the stakes get a lot higher. There is suicide watch, angry fans, and threats. I enjoyed reading this book and can't wait to read more by the author.

Love Kpop

Great story about the difficulties of Kpop and what performers go through with crazy fans. A little unbelievable that a non Korean speaking American would have been hired and that fans at the end were accepting of a relationship. Narration was just ok, a little whiny sounding.

Just buy it!

I throughly enjoyed this audiobook. This was my first time reading a romance book in the world of K-pop. I found myself really enjoying reading my favorite genre (romance) in a new culture I didn’t know much about. It was definitely worth the Audible credit so, yes! Try it out everyone!

I did find myself feeling bad for Grace because it seemed like everyone was being so mean to her at certain points in the book. There were a few instances where characters did things that would have been a non negotiable “no” to me then she immediately forgave them. But that’s just my opinion as an individual. I did genuinely enjoy this book. I’d say my final rating is 4.5 stars. Excellent writing, great plot, we even got some spice. I docked half a star because I wish the romance/relationship was written better. Also I wish there was more expanding on the resolution.

Still, it was truly a great time :)

Welcome (Back) to KPOP / KDRAMA

Whether you are a regular reader or new to it, I highly recommend this book and Audio. I even sent it to coworkers and family/friends to take a listen to. This is my first for the author and KPOP/ KDRAMA and I loved it!

The fluidity of emotions were smooth and realistic, the main characters were ones I could imagine as myself or those around me, and I can’t count how many times I laughed. Even passing my headphones to my husband so he could join in on the fun. What an absolute intro this world, and it’s characters. The slow build of each person helped you create a full being in your head like you were watching a real show. Can’t wait for the next book (sitting on my counter now).

If you find yourself too busy to read just do audiobooks. Recommended to many by my bff, the voice actors on this were great and were able create those different accents, tones and variations for multi-person convos. Truly fun, and saved me for a midnight multi-hr drive.

10/10 read for me, and no I was not paid haha.

So Good

I really enjoyed this book. The love story is cute. I also appreciated the realistic and unreasonable expectations for many K-pop idles. As a fan, knowing this is one thing, but hearing at first a person account really hit my heart. great book and story.

Sweet❤️

A great loving, tender, HOT sexy love story.
A MUST listen!
Enjoyed all it. ❤️
So sweet !

Fun story for K-pop fans

The female reader did a great job…The male reader’s usage of an accent when portraying a character was just plain irritating because it was not believable. Fortunately, the majority of the story did not include the accented character.

Good job!

It was a Good story. I enjoyed the band mates personalities. Especially Sookie. The readers did a good job.

solid idol story

It was all quite believable until one of the k-pop group members talks about having won a grammy, then I knew for sure it was fictional. 🙃 (this was an insult to grammys, for anyone who doesn’t know)

No but seriously, this story kept my attention, I loved the relationships between our intern and the group members. Two big issues with the narration for me—1) the pronunciation of korean words by korean characters was atrocious—both voices absolutely slaughtered them. I feel like a little bit of research could have fixed this; 2) the male voice read the “korean” accents almost as….german accent maybe?? Idk, it was distracting. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I loved the book

I loved this story. It was well written and enjoyed it so much.
Even though personally I would have gone for Rei/Ray.
I really hope that this isn’t a standalone book. I really would like Rei to find happiness also—as well as spend more time with the rest of the guys and watch them find happiness and grow as well.
I love all of the characters.