Red Sky Over Hawaii: A Novel
Sara Ackerman
On Sale Date: June 9, 2020
9780778309673, 0778309673
Trade Paperback
$17.99 USD, $22.99 CAD
Fiction / Historical / World War II
352 pages
MIRA Books
ABOUT THE BOOK:
For fans of Chanel Cleeton and Beatriz
Williams, RED SKY OVER HAWAII is historical women's fiction set in
the islands during WWII. It's the story of a woman who has to put her
safety and her heart on the line when she becomes the unexpected
guardian of a misfit group and decides to hide with them in a secret
home in the forest on Kilauea Volcano.
The attack on Pearl Harbor changes
everything for Lana Hitchcock. Arriving home on the Big Island too
late to reconcile with her estranged father, all she can do is
untangle the clues of his legacy, which lead to a secret property in
the forest on Kilauea Volcano. America has been drawn into WWII, and
amid rumors of impending invasion, the army places the islands under
martial law. When they start taking away neighbors as possible
sympathizers, Lana finds herself suddenly guardian to two girls, as
well as accomplice to an old family friend who is Japanese, along
with his son. In a heartbeat, she makes the decision to go into
hiding with them all.
The hideaway house is not what Lana
expected, revealing its secrets slowly, and things become even more
complicated by the interest of Major Grant Bailey, a soldier from the
nearby internment camp. Lana is drawn to him, too, but needs to
protect her little group. With a little help from the magic on the
volcano, Lana finds she can open her bruised heart to the
children--and maybe to Grant.
A lush and evocative novel about doing
what is right against the odds, following your heart, and what makes
a family.
BUY LINKS:
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EXCERPT:
THE ROAD
December 8, 1941
WITH EVERY MILE CLOSER TO VOLCANO, THE FOG
thickened, until they were driving through a forest of white gauze
with the occasional branch showing through. Lana considered turning
the truck around no less than forty-six times. Going back to Hilo
would have been the prudent thing to do, but this was not a time for
prudence. Of that she was sure. She slowed the Chevy to a crawl and
checked the rearview mirror. The cage with the geese was now
invisible, and she could barely make out the dog’s big black spots.
Maybe the fog would be to their advantage.
“I don’t like it here at all,”
said Coco, who was smashed up next to Lana, scrawny arms folded in
protest. The child had to almost yell to be heard above the chug of
the motor.
Lana grabbed a blanket from the floor. “Put
this over you. It should help.”
Coco shook her head. “I’m not cold. I want
to go home. Can you please take us back?”
Goose bumps had formed up and down her limbs,
but she was so stubborn that she had refused to put on a jacket.
True, Hilo was insufferably hot, but where they were headed—four
thousand feet up the mountain—the air was cold and damp and flimsy.
It had been over ten years since Lana had set
foot at Kı¯lauea. Never would she have guessed to be returning
under these circumstances.
Marie chimed in. “We can’t go back now,
sis. And anyway, there’s no one to go back to at the moment.”
Poor Coco trembled. Lana wished she could hug
the girl and tell her everything was going to be okay. But that would
be a lie. Things were liable to get a whole lot worse before they got
any better.
“Sorry, honey. I wish things were different,
but right now you two are my priority. Once we get to the house, we
can make a plan,” Lana said.
“But you don’t even know where it is,”
Coco whined.
“I have a good idea.”
More like a vague notion.
“What if we don’t find it by dark?
Are they going to shoot us?” Coco said.
Marie put her arm around Coco and pulled her
in. “Turn off that little overactive imagination of yours. No one
is going to shoot us,” she said, but threw a questioning glance
Lana’s way.
“We’ll be fine,” Lana said, wishing she
believed that.
The girls were not the real problem here. Of
greater concern was what they had hidden in the back of the truck.
Curfew was six o’clock, but people had been ordered to stay off the
roads unless their travel was essential to the war. Lana hadn’t
told the girls that. Driving up here was a huge risk, but she had
invented a story she hoped and prayed would let them get through if
anyone stopped them. The thought of a checkpoint caused her palms to
break out in sweat, despite the icy air blowing in through the cracks
in the floorboard.
On a good day, the road from Hilo to Volcano
would take about an hour and a half. Today was not a good day. Every
so often they hit a rut the size of a whiskey barrel that bounced her
head straight into the roof. The continuous drizzle of the rain
forest had undermined all attempts at smooth roads here. At times the
ride was reminiscent of the plane ride from Honolulu. Exactly two
days ago, but felt more like a lifetime.
Lana’s main worry was what they would
encounter once in the vicinity of the national park entrance. With
the Kı¯lauea military camp nearby, there were bound to be soldiers
and roadblocks in the area. She had so many questions for her father
and felt a mixed ache of sadness and resentment that he was not here
to answer them. How were you so sure the Japanese were coming? Why
the volcano, of all places? How are we going to survive up here? Why
didn’t you call me sooner?
Coco seemed to settle down, leaning her
nut-brown ringlets against her sister’s shoulder and closing her
eyes. There was something comforting in the roar of the engine and
the jostle of the truck. With the whiteout it was hard to tell where
they were, but by all estimates they should be arriving soon.
Lana was dreaming of a cup of hot coffee when
Coco sat upright and said, “I have to go tinkle.”
“Tinkle?” Lana asked.
Marie said, “She means she has to go to the
bathroom.”
They drove until they found a grassy shoulder,
and Lana pulled the truck aside, though they could have stopped in
the middle of the road. They had met only one other vehicle the whole
way, a police car that fortunately had passed by.
The rain had let up, and they all climbed out.
It was like walking through a cloud, and the air smelled metallic and
faintly lemony from the eucalyptus that lined the road. Lana went to
check on Sailor. The dog stood up and whined, yanking on the rope
around her neck, straining to be pet. Poor thing was drenched and
shaking. Lana had wanted to leave her behind with a neighbor, but
Coco had put up such a fuss, throwing herself onto her bed and
wailing and punching the pillow, that Lana relented. Caring for the
girls would be hard enough, but a hundred-and-twenty-pound dog?
“Just a bathroom stop. Is everyone okay back
here?” she asked in a hushed voice. Two low grunts came from under
the tarp. “We should be there soon. Remember, be still and don’t
make a sound if we stop again.”
As if on cue, one of the hidden passengers
started a coughing fit, shaking the whole tarp. She wondered how wise
it was to subject him to this long and chilly ride, and if it might
be the death of him. But the alternative was worse.
“Deep breaths…you can do it,” Lana said.
Coco showed up and hopped onto the back tire.
“I think we should put Sailor inside with us. She looks miserable.”
“Whose lap do you propose she sits on?”
Lana said.
Sailor was as tall as a small horse, but half
as wide.
“I can sit in the back of the truck and she
can come up here, then,” Coco said in all seriousness.
“Not in those clothes you won’t. We don’t
need you catching pneumonia on us.”
They started off again, and ten seconds down
the road, Sailor started howling at the top of her lungs. Lana felt
herself on the verge of unraveling. The last thing they needed was
one extra ounce of attention. The whole idea of coming up here was
preposterous when she thought about it. At the time it had seemed
like a good idea, but now she wondered at her sanity.
“What is wrong with that dog?” Lana
said, annoyed.
Coco turned around, and Lana felt her hot
breath against her arm. In the smallest of voices, she said, “Sailor
is scared.”
Lana felt her heart crack. “Oh, honey, we’re
all a bit scared.
It’s perfectly normal under the
circumstances. But I promise you this—I will do everything in my
power to keep you out of harm’s way.”
“But you hardly know us,” Coco said.
“My father knew you, and you knew him,
right?” Lana said. “And remember, if anyone asks, we tell them
our story.”
They had rehearsed it many times already, but
with kids one could never be sure. Not that Lana had much experience
with kids. With none of her own and no nieces or nephews in the
islands, she felt the lack palpably, smack in the center of her
chest. There had been a time when she saw children in her future, but
that dream had come and gone and left her sitting on the curb with a
jarful of tears.
Her mind immediately went to Buck. Strange how
your future with a person could veer so far off course from how you’d
originally pictured it. How the one person you swore you would have
and hold could end up wreaking havoc on your heart instead. She
blinked the thought away.
As they neared Volcano, the fog remained like a
curtain, but the air around them brightened. Lana knew from all her
time up here as a young girl that the trees got smaller as the
elevation rose, and the terrain changed from towering eucalyptus and
fields of yellow-and-white ginger to a more cindery terrain covered
with red-blossomed ‘ohi‘a trees, and prehistoriclooking ha¯pu’u
ferns and the crawling uluhe. At one time in her life, this had been
one of her happiest places. Coco reached for the letter on the
dashboard and began reading it for the fourth time. “Coco
Hitchcock. It sounds funny.” The paper was already getting
worn.
Marie swiped it out of her hands. “You’re
going to ruin that. Give it to me.”
Where Coco was whip thin and dark and
spirited—a nice way of putting it—Marie was blonde and
full-bodied and sweet as coconut taffy. But Lana could tell even
Marie’s patience was wearing thin.
“Mrs. Hitchcock said we need to memorize our
new names or we’ll be shot.”
Lana said as calmly as she could, “I never
said anything of the sort. And, Coco, you have to get used to calling
me Aunt Lana for now. Both of you do.”
“And stop talking about getting shot,”
Marie added, rolling her eyes.
If they could all just hold it together a
little bit longer.
There was sweat pooling between her breasts and
behind her kneecaps. Lying was not her strong suit, and she was
hoping that, by some strange miracle, they could sail on through
without anyone stopping them. She rolled her window down a couple of
inches for a burst of fresh air. “We’re just about here. So if we
get stopped, let me do the talking. Speak only if someone asks you a
direct question, okay?”
Neither girl said anything; they both just
nodded. Lana could almost see the fear condensing on the windshield.
And pretty soon little Coco started sniffling. Lana would have said
something to comfort her, but her mind was void of words. Next the
sniffles turned into heaving sobs big enough to break the poor girl
in half. Marie rubbed her hand up and down Coco’s back in a warm,
smooth circle.
“You can cry when we get there, but no tears
now,” she said.
Tears and snot were smeared across Coco’s
face in one big shiny layer. “But they might kill Mama and Papa.”
Her face was pinched and twisted into such anguish that Lana had to
fight back a sob of her own.
Excerpted
from Red
Sky Over Hawaii by
Sara Ackerman, Copyright ©
2020 by Sara Sckerman. Published by MIRA Books.
~~~***~~~***~~~
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Sara Ackerman is the USA
Today bestselling author of The Lieutenant's Nurse and Island of
Sweet Pies and Soldiers. Born and raised in Hawaii, she studied
journalism and earned graduate degrees in psychology and Chinese
medicine. She blames Hawaii for her addiction to writing, and sees no
end to its untapped stories. When she's not writing or teaching,
you'll find her in the mountains or in the ocean. She currently lives
on the Big Island with her boyfriend and a houseful of bossy animals.
Find out more about Sara and her books at www.ackermanbooks.com and
follow her on Instagram @saraackermanbooks and on FB @ackermanbooks.
SOCIAL LINKS:
Facebook: @ackermanbooks
Twitter: @AckermanBooks
Instagram: @saraackermanbooks
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