The Spoils of Eden - 01 - Dawn of Hawaii Series

The waves lap dangerously close to the abandoned baby – abandoned by the Molokai leper colony of the late 1800s.

That baby will be at the center of an alternately tense and bittersweet romantic struggle between Eden Derrington and Rafe Easton. Eden and Rafe are in love, but Baby Kip may very well endanger their future together.

It’s two generations after the on-fire missionaries have arrived on the Hawaiian Islands, and the descendants of those missionaries are drifting into complacency and materialism. The generational plots and subplots masterfully woven throughout this first in the “Dawn of Hawaii” trilogy will leave the reader yearning for the second and third books, coming in 2011 and 2012.

Pub. Date:  May 2010
View more by Linda Lee Chaikin

Publisher's Preview

Amid the looming spiritual and political crisis in Hawaii, Eden Derrington and Rafe Easton are thrust into a conflict that will forever change their beloved Hawaii and threaten to derail their future marriage. When Eden, representing the Hawaiian Board of Health at Kalihi Leper Hospital is sent to Rafe's plantation to take baby Kip to Kalihi to quarantine him indefinitely, an emotional volcano of suspected betrayal threatens to turn their love relationship to ashes. Someone has alerted the Board that the baby Rafe saved and brought to Honolulu came from the Kalawao leper colony. Since the law strictly forbids children born of lepers from being adopted Kip's future seems destined toward tragedy. And what of Eden and Rafe after their engagement is broken? When Eden's father, Dr. Jerome, returns to open a clinic at Kalawao, she joins her father, leaving Rafe to run for the legislature and attempt to change the children's law.