Looking For a Good Book

Makalani Pahukula is a park ranger in Oregon, but she’s returned to the Hawaiian island of Kaua‘i to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday. But Makalani has been gone for ten years and she’s now realizing that she has a deep disconnect with her family, her home, and her ‘people’.

She arrives to find a lot of in-fighting among her family, but worse is that two of her cousins are missing. The latter doesn’t seem to bother anyone, until Makalani learns that a body was found by some hunters in the Keālia Forest Reserve. Her ranger training has her concerned that something nefarious might be happening in the area and finding her cousins becomes much more urgent.

Makalani must find her cousins, see to their safety, help settle family arguments, and find out what illegal activities are taking place in her beloved Hawaiian home before she heads back to Oregon. But the the island may be calling her home.

I was looking for something new – a new author to read – and I didn’t want to pick up in the middle of a series, so when I saw a new series, by a seasoned author (though I’ve not read anything by Tori Eldridge prior to this), I figured I found a great opportunity.

I loved the concept: a park ranger, Hawaii, family dynamics, and a traditional mystery to be solved. This should have been the beginning of a really great series.  But it’s not.

First, I fully admit that I struggle to read a book with words (especially names) that I cannot pronounce. I can’t just skim over it – I have to stop and try to pronounce it, and this really slows me down. Particularly when I’m trying to get it right.

Set in Hawaii, with native Hawaiians as our central characters, it only makes sense that personal names and place names are Hawaiian. But unless you speak Hawaiian, the pure volume of vowels and apostrophes in the words are daunting.

In addition to the Hawaiian, there are characters who speak an abbreviated, regional dialect, written rather phonetically (“It’s not ’bout da money. Dey called it da Kuleana Act because of our responsibility and sacred duty to care fo’ da land. I lease dis homestead to show mālama and kuleana fo’ dis place and all da ‘āina we lost.”). Heap this lingo on top of the unique, Hawaiian words and some readers – like me – will really struggle.  This is the kind of book I need to listen to, rather than try to read.

The mystery is a little simple, but it works. We do, however, have to get through a lot of description of places and people, to get to it. It seems to come at inopportune times.

We also have odd moments that appear to be important and then are swept away rather easily. I was quite interested in the exciting moment of two people caught in a major storm, phones not finding a signal, and one unable to move. It’s a tense scene and I was really hooked. And then it’s over without our seeing the rescue. Makalani rushes to an ER to ask if he’s been brought in and the response is “He arrived two hours ago. They moved him out of ER.” What was she doing for two hours?

Future books in the series will not make my ‘must read’ list, but I’d definitely consider listening to an audio book – let someone else work out how to pronounce everything. And the pidgin English will likely sound better than it reads.

Looking for a good book? Kaua’i Storm by Tori Eldridge is the first book in a new mystery series set in Hawaii. Be prepared to read a lot of Hawaiian words and dialect.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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Kaua’i Storm

author: Tori Eldridge

publisher: Thomas & Mercer

ISBN: 9781662525247

paperback, 445 pages