Marion Balyszak

A Telling of Ancestors Marion Balyszak

A long-kept secret reveals Emma Prince is not who she believed. The revelation draws her to the north shore of Kauai in search of Aikue Prince, an elusive Hawaiian artist-and the father she believed was dead. The quest for the truth about why he abandoned his family twenty-five years earlier begins with an address on a telegram and a dead man flower lei, with a cryptic message, 'The reconciliation you seek is connected to the dead'. Kauai is calling and Emma is about to discover why she was always meant to be there. Through 'a telling of ancestors', a long-concealed lineage tied to the ruling chiefs of Kauai begins to see the light of day after nearly two centuries. She soon discovers a mystical island paradise filled with legendary, storied places, where secrets are concealed from the eyes of men and the present is deeply rooted in a mythic past resonating with ancient legends and island magic. And as it turns out, Emma possesses a bit of that magic, known as mana. Just as the island begins to make her whole, darkness descends over paradise, and as her parent's feared, Emma encounters danger-and perpetual 'chicken skin'. Efforts to find her father are thwarted by a family afraid of something or someone; a mysterious stalker, called 'The Watcher', who threatens Emma to 'leave Kauai or die'; and 'loafers and hangers-on', thieves who would do anything to take what isn't theirs to possess-including disturbing the dead, defiling the land, and murder. Before Emma can find her father, she must rely on help from ancient gods, ancestral guardians, and the legendary mana tied to her newfound blood connection to Kauai to quell the disturbance of the land and deliver a dose of 'island justice' to the nefarious troublemakers standing in her way.