A boy who is allergic to water. Add to that the location: Hawaii . Mix in the
tantalizing legend of Niuhi, a shark that can turn into a person, and you have the
perfect setting for a great mystery. Written in both English and Hawaiian
Pidgin, One Boy No Water by Lehua
Parker plunges the reader into a Hawaii
where reality and mythology blend seamlessly.
Abandoned on the ocean reef when he was a newborn baby, Zader
is found by Uncle Kahana who carries the infant to the home of his niece, Liz,
to be raised as one of her three children. Though treated by his adoptive
mother as family, Zader can’t escape the fact that he is different. After all,
who wouldn’t when the slightest touch of water acts like lava on the skin, bringing
on an onslaught of sores and blisters of intense agony?
Strangely, the very allergy afflicting Zader is what leads Uncle
Kahana to believe that he and Zader are, in fact, related. Yet, Uncle Kahana
won’t give any details as to why or how this can be? Or where Zader’s birthparents
are. Then Zader starts to have dreams: first of someone he calls Dreamgirl, then
of a beautiful lady, and a man named Kalei whom Zader fears. Yet these aren’t
dreams, as we soon find out. These people actually exist. Uncle Kahana knows
them. What is their connection to Zader, especially when so much hints at their
being Niuhi?
Parker does an amazing job of weaving the mystery of who and
what Zader is throughout the story. Even more outstanding is her ability to infuse
other mythologies into the action, which only serve to heighten the secrecy surrounding
Zader. The truth will boggle the mind.
One Boy No Water,
to be released by Jolly Fish Press on September 29th, is the first book
of the Niuhi Shark Saga, and will be available in bookstores and in e-book
formats.
Lehua Parker is originally from Hawaii
and a graduate of The Kamehameha Schools and Brigham Young
University . So far she
has been a live television director, a school teacher, a courseware manager, an
instructional designer, a sports coach, a theater critic, a SCUBA instructor, a
poet, a web designer, a mother, and a wife. Her debut novel, One Boy, No Water is the first book in
her MG/YA series the Niuhi Shark Saga. She currently lives in Utah with her husband, two children, four
cats, two dogs, six horses, and assorted chickens. During the snowy Utah winters she dreams
about the beach.
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