Current mood: blissful

Hi everyone,

I am really excited that the new Kimo & Lopaka adventure, Summer Love, comes out in two days.

I've had some nice emails about the book cover and its title. It is, like almost all my books a song title, this one an old Sherbet song from the 70s...ah the wages of a misspent youth, my father would say. I would call it fodder.

You see, I am actually in the middle of writing another one of K & L's adventures, this one for Halloween and it's called Beguiled; A Haunted Hawaiian Halloween. In this book, Kimo and Lopaka help an obake - a Japanese ghost - find her way home. This story is based on an experience I had with an actual girl ghost in Honolulu. Don't let anybody tell you that there is no mana, no spiritual power in Honolulu. Take it from me, kids, there is.

Hawaiian people are very superstitious and believe that if you talk about ghosts and demonic possession etc. that it invites psychic trouble. As I sat in my home office last night typing out my tale, I did think about this, but so far, nothing is flying off the walls and the dog is not spitting up pea soup yelling "Beezelbub!"at me.

Not yet, anyway.

In Summer Love, Kimo and Lopaka meet an ancient Shark God, Kamoho'ali'i, brother of the Goddess Pele.  Wouldn't it be wonderful to be married to a man who can conjure up ancient spirits, old gods and give you a hot time in the sack to boot?

I think so...in these troubled times of war, famine, unprecedented natural disaster, I yearn for peace. I try to create stories that for a moment in time, take my readers some place wonderful. My grandma once told me about a natural rock formation in Malta called the Azure Window. It has no glass, but they say that to look through it, is to see bliss. I hope one day to see it in person.

But in my mind, I always try to write from that place. I prefer to view a world, not through rose colored glasses. But through an azure window.

Aloha oe,

A.J.