The Invisible Wild
I don’t even know how to begin to announce this, except to say: I have written a novel.
The Invisible Wild is the story of my childhood, of growing up in Volcano, Hawai‘i uncertain about where I belonged, and yet fiercely protective of the magical, uncanny place I call home.
It’s a Young Adult novel, and it will be available May 6 from Running Press Children’s.
The indigenous people of Hawaiʻi are known as kanaka maoli, “true people.” In the third century, they sailed over 2,000 miles across untraveled seas, traveling from the Marquesas to the most remote island chain in the world. According to legend, however, the true kanaka maoli were already there. They were two to three feet tall, squat and strong, good and kind, and bothered no one without cause—they were the Menehune. When the Hawaiians came, the menehune chieftains feared the changes they brought. So, on the night of a full moon, they called all men and their firstborn sons and ordered them to leave Hawai’i. Some refused and, instead, hid behind to remain with their families. In the early 1800s, Kauai chief Kaumaualiʻi took a census of his people—and 65 of his 2,000 subjects were all that remained of the original people of Hawai’i.
Flash forward to today: sixteen-year-old Emma is out running errands when she comes across a boy from Hilo living in the woods, saying things that do not make sense. It’s here, in these woods, that Emma has memories of finding a space between “the worlds” as a child. She soon realizes this boy has accessed the place she lost, as well as the people, the Menehune. She helps him hide until whatever spell has been cast over him is broken. Together, Emma and the Hilo boy have to figure out what the Menehune want before it’s too late to save the only home any of them have known.
I have written a lot of books, but this one is very dear to my heart. My woods and my family are writ on these pages, and all I can hope is that I have done justice to the love I have for them.