French rights sold!

The first romance novel from Heo Jinhee, Grand Prize winner of the 10th Munhakdongne Young Adult Literature Award for FALLING FOR DOKGO SOM

Five teenagers. Five tangled hearts. No one way to love. A fresh, inclusive ensemble romance that makes room for first love, friendship, lifelong partnership, and love beyond gender conventions, without ever turning the heart into a competition

"The way they face the emotion called 'love' is so bright you can't look away."
First-love butterflies meet K-drama level addictiveness.

In the winter between seventeen and eighteen, Do Eunsong and Oh Rora could not be more different, yet they are close enough to call each other soul sisters. Eunsong is fascinated by AI interpreting technology and has little interest in dating. Rora, an aspiring writer, wears every feeling openly and throws themself wholeheartedly into love.
After a painful breakup, Rora decides that an unrequited crush is safer and confesses to liking Eunsong’s longtime friend, Ho Seoro. Eunsong promises to cheer Rora on, but something immediately feels off. Unable to make sense of the jealousy creeping in, Eunsong blurts out a lie: there is someone else, their friend Namgung Gyeol from Canada.
The problem is that Gyeol has liked Eunsong from the very beginning. And Jang Banji, who seems to have appeared out of nowhere in the middle of Eunsong and Rora’s friendship, is hiding a crush of their own. Before long, five hearts are caught in a web of feelings no one quite knows how to name. As friendship and romance begin to overlap, each of them must learn how to be honest without treating someone else’s heart carelessly.
Unfolding from Christmas Eve to January 21, THE LOVE WE PRETEND TO HAVE captures all the excitement and uncertainty of first love while making room for many kinds of connection. Tender, inclusive, and refreshingly free of romantic rivalry, it is a coming-of-age romance about recognizing what we feel, saying it out loud, and growing into the courage to love with honesty and care.

Three kinds of "liking":​ the fresh first love of the young group; the quiet, decade-long devotion of Eun-song's father and Aurora's mother (the most moving subplot of the book); and Jang Ban-ji's unrequited love for Aurora, crossing the boundary of gender.

Heo Jinhee
Heo Jinhee made a celebrated debut with FALLING FOR DOKGO SOM, winner of the Grand Prize at the 10th Munhakdongne Young Adult Literature Award in 2020. Since then, Heo has written for both young adult and adult readers, capturing the messy, tender realities of growing up and the relationships that shape who we become.
Heo’s young adult novels include FALLING FOR DOKGO SOM, THE DAY NO PARAM
QUIT A PART-TIME JOB, THE LOVE WE PRETEND TO HAVE, and ZOMBIE HUNTER
LEE GI. Heo has also written the adult novels HOW TO ARGUE FOR EVIL and THE INHERITANCE OF ZERO.