Aficionados of Hawaiian history and those who lust for battle will enjoy this hero’s tale.
This novel presents the trials and derring-do of a warrior, set against the backdrop of the most tumultuous time in the history of Hawaii, the end of the 18th century.
Readers meet Kalani Tana when marauders steal into his compound in Kahului on the island of Maui in the early hours, set fire to the buildings, and slaughter those who try to escape the flames. Kalani’s pregnant wife, Nani, burns to death. Who was behind this? Kalani vows revenge. He travels to Hawaii, the leader Kamehameha’s home island. Eventually, Kalani is enlisted to spy for Kamehameha, assessing the strength of his enemies’ forces. Enter Capt. George Vancouver, who is trying to broker a peace among the warring factions of what was then called the Sandwich Islands. Kalani, who is bilingual, becomes very important in the negotiations. A deal is struck: The islands will be under British protection, but peace must be maintained. This does not go well. Rival kings plot against Kamehameha, and alliances are extremely fluid. And through all of this, Kalani is still trying to get to the bottom of his wife’s murder. After much brutal warfare, Kamehameha is triumphant, and Kalani plots his retribution. An epilogue takes readers up to the final unification—thanks to Kamehameha—of the islands that people know today as Hawaii. Fernandez is a competent writer. That it is a dizzying challenge to follow the tale, considering all of the names that will be unfamiliar to most readers, is hardly his fault. (The list of important characters is quite helpful.) This is literally a bloody book that is also historically true, offering rich details. The author has to keep the protagonist alive, of course, so Kalani comports himself in combat like a superhero (with his faithful sidekick, Moki). In this engrossing story, Kalani is an appealing figure who is against human sacrifice and supports the decent treatment of the powerless, attitudes that will later be accepted in principles like the Law of the Splintered Paddle.
Aficionados of Hawaiian history and those who lust for battle will enjoy this hero’s tale. (maps, sketches, glossary, bibliography)Pub Date: April 23, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-9990326-9-5
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Bowker
Review Posted Online: June 6, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.
A phone call from her past disrupts the tenuously reconstructed life of a concert pianist turned farmer’s wife.
We know from the beginning that Livia Cable is the battered survivor of her brother Cyrus’ death by suicide, a devastating romance, and a career-ending injury. Only 11 when Cyrus stepped in front of a train, she was already marked out as different in her rural Tennessee hometown by her extraordinary musical ability. The siblings had huddled together against their angry mother’s frequent beatings, and Livia still feels abandoned by Cyrus years later, when she picks up the phone to hear the voice of Sigurd, the fiery labor organizer she loved and lost to “the revolution” while on scholarship at the Indiana University School of Music. Now married to kind, steady childhood friend Charlie, Livia looks back on her affair with Sigurd as she struggles to deal with the recent death of her mother, a compulsive hoarder who left a house stuffed with junk to be disposed of and bitter memories that haven’t faded over time. Kingsolver skillfully juggles the two time frames to unravel Livia’s complicated feelings about the life she lost when her right hand was crushed and the life she has now as a country piano teacher. A partita, she explains to Sigurd early on, “is a composition made of a lot of parts with a lot of different moods…the artist’s work is to make them all add up to something that feels whole.” That’s precisely what Kingsolver does in this beautifully paced and judged narrative, which builds to revelations uncovered amid the piles of trash in Livia’s childhood home about the reasons for Cyrus’ suicide (clearly foreshadowed) and their mother’s rage (startling and heartbreaking). A fierce belief that great art is for everyone joins Kingsolver’s familiar preoccupations with class distinctions, social injustice, and the complex bonds of family and community in a tender denouement.
Brilliant, affecting work from one of contemporary literature’s masters.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2026
ISBN: 9780063577541
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: July 6, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2026
SEEN & HEARD
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.
Stockett heads to Mississippi for another historical novel about feisty women.
This time, perhaps recalling criticisms of cultural appropriation in The Help (2009), she sticks to feisty white women, with one exception. The setting is Oxford in 1933. For two miserable years, 11-year-old Meg has lived in “the Orphan,” a county asylum for parentless girls. Chairlady Garnett—a villain so one-note she’d twirl a mustache if she had one—makes it her mission to ostracize the older girls she deems unadoptable, stigmatizing them as offspring of the “feebleminded” mothers who abandoned them. She particularly has it in for smart, sassy Meg, who refuses to believe her mother’s mysterious disappearance was deliberate. Elsewhere in Oxford, Birdie Calhoun comes to visit her sister Frances, who married a wealthy banker, to ask for money on behalf of their mother and grandmother back in Footely. Frances isn’t thrilled by this reminder of her impoverished small-town origins. But she’s trying to climb up in Oxford society by volunteering at the Orphan, the asylum’s books need to be done before the state inspector shows up in a few weeks, and Birdie is a bookkeeper. Having neatly arranged to keep Birdie in town and draw these two storylines together, Stockett goes on to spin a compulsively readable yarn with enough plot for a half-dozen novels. Birdie and Meg become friends, Meg is adopted despite Garnett’s best efforts, Meg’s mother turns up at the Orphan demanding to know where her child is—and that’s less than a quarter of the way through a long, winding narrative that keeps piling on more dramatic developments until all loose ends are neatly, if hastily, wrapped up in the final pages. Stockett might be making a point about Southern women facing facts and standing up for themselves, but mostly this is just a satisfyingly twisty tale that should make a great miniseries.
Fans of Stockett’s bestselling debut will love this engaging follow-up.Pub Date: May 5, 2026
ISBN: 9781954118812
Page Count: 656
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: Feb. 2, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2026
BOOK REVIEW
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