Check out the new book by Sara Ackerman's newest historical fiction book,RED SKY OVER HAWAII and settle in for a story that will leave you breathless.
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.
Teaser 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.
BUY
LINKS:
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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