The Shade Under the Mango Tree
Gold Medal, Contemporary Fiction, 2021 Global Book Awards (formerly New York City Book Awards)
Finalist, 2021 SPR (Self Publishing Review) Book Awards
Finalist, Multicultural Fiction, 2021 International Book Awards
After two heartbreaking losses, Luna wants adventure. Something and somewhere very different from the affluent, sheltered home where she grew up. An adventure in which she can make some difference.
Lucien, a worldly, well-traveled young architect, finds a stranger’s journal at a café. He has qualms and pangs of guilt about reading it. But they don’t stop him. His decision to go on reading changes his life.
Months later, they meet at a bookstore. Fascinated by his stories and adventurous spirit, Luna goes to a rice-growing village in a country steeped in an ancient culture and a deadly history. What she finds there defies anything she could have imagined. Will she leave this world unscathed?
An epistolary tale of courage, resilience, and the bonds that bring diverse people together.
More info →Welcome, Reluctant Stranger
Leilani, a relationship-phobic psychologist with a dead aim, rescues Justin, drunk from nursing a broken heart, when thugs assault him on a deserted street. Haunted by a past mysterious to her, she’s devastated when she learns why her family fled their privileged Pacific island life without her father. Is her father still alive? Is he a hero or a villain? Can she accept him for what he is? And can she reconnect with her roots and be at peace with who she is?
More info →