Sexy, sweet and moving are three words I would use to describe the fantastic novel, Hanalani, by the talented author Christine Sunderland. There’s a definite theme of hope and the possibility of redemption running through the novel, but Hana-lani’s tone never gets heavy. Reading it is like taking a breath of fresh island air, and its depiction of rural Hawaiian life in Hanalani, the former family home of one of the novel’s main characters, elderly Nani Lei, is guaranteed to lift your spirits and brighten up your day. Beautiful and materialistic Meredith Campbell, 36, who could have stepped straight out of the Sex In the City TV show, seems to come from a completely different world than Nani-Lei, her widowed 52-year-old grandson Henry, and their six -Year-old daughter, Lucy. What will it take for these two people, Meredith and Henry, to meet, fall in love, and change their lives for the better?

City girl Meredith Campbell seems to have it all: a high-paying job, an amazing body, and a handsome lover who’s a doctor. Her life in San Francisco is sweet, but Meredith is also very self-centered and she believes that her body will ensure her happiness. She doesn’t like being around children, she thinks that going to visit her father in a house in Florida is a waste of time. Also, she thinks, and past experience has generally shown, that with her attractive body and flirting with men she can get almost anything she wants. She’s not an evil person, but she is someone who knows what she wants and isn’t above using her natural charms to get it.

One day, his world begins to fall apart. She loses her job and discovers Nick, the doctor who is also her boyfriend, in her bed with her ex-wife. Meredith decides to get away from everything about her, and even though Nick has cheated on her, she fantasizes that he follows her to Hawaii and rides shirtless to her on a beach. At first, Meredith seemed too shallow to me, and to be honest, I didn’t particularly like her character. However, as she continued to read, she intrigued me more and more with her character and wondered what could happen to change her and her life for the better.

It turns out that the small plane she’s traveling in crashed, killing the drug pilot she had sex with the night before, to start heading her life in a different direction. Nick’s long-awaited arrival never comes, it’s the rainy season, there’s not much for her to do, and he looks to leave and return to San Francisco and find a different job. The problem is that all the flights have been canceled due to the weather. A shady guy she knows offers her a flight in exchange for sex, and although she isn’t really attracted to the guy, she accepts the arrangement because she wants to get off the island with all her might and doesn’t care about the possible odds. impact. Both engines fail and the plane crashes, despite the pilot’s efforts to glide it in for a landing.

Fortunately for Meredith, the plane crashes near Hana-lani. Lucy notices a “smoke maelstrom” rising into the air across the acres of field surrounding the house, leading hers Nani tutu (grandmother) to the smoldering wreckage of the plane. There aren’t the most advanced medical facilities on the island, but although Meredith is unconscious for a few days and has cuts to her face and thigh, her injuries don’t seem all that bad. Nani tutu takes her to Hana-lani to take care of her personally there, while she recovers from her.

Henry is a history teacher who is on sabbatical to work on a book that his late wife, Maria, had planned to write and publish. He’s lost in the many bookshelves of his and just wants to focus on researching and writing the book, as a way to honor Maria’s memory, if nothing else. He tolerates Meredith’s presence, but at first he doesn’t want much to do with her, believing (rightly, at the time) that he’s shallow. How can he find himself again and deal with the terrible loss he has suffered in the death of his wife?

Hana-lani is a moving and beautifully written novel about the collision of very different worlds. His descriptions of Hawaii will make you want to catch the next flight to the islands to see their beauty for yourself. Also, I really enjoyed the quotes that the author, Christine Sunderland, uses from TS Eliot’s “Four Quartets.” He’s one of my favorite poets, although I’m more familiar with his other poems, like “The Wasteland.” Hana-lani is a novel that rises above most romance novels, and it is a piece of literature that I enjoyed reading. However, it’s still light-hearted enough and a fun enough read to appeal to anyone who loves the romance genre. I highly recommend this novel. Check out Hana-lani today!