The Hāmākua Coast

As the train carried Ewalina Laurance through the 'ōhi'a-covered hills of the Hāmākua Coast, she could not help feeling a deep sense of foreboding. For a young woman of penurious circumstances, serving as a governess was the prescribed formula. Even if said work was far from her home of Honolulu, on a plantation in the heyday of Hawaiʻi's sugarcane industry.

But Ewa was high-spirited and not unattractive, and she hated the idea of it--especially when she learned of the strange mysteries that shrouded her new home of the Keʻalohilani Plantation.

Her anxiety grew when she first saw that barren, isolated coast, and the manor house brooding high on the cliffs. And what of her arrogant employer, Kupuʻeu Judd and his precocious, resentful young daughter, Victoria? And why have the three previous governesses left the eerie mansion?

Neighbors and servants hint at strange accidents, infidelity, and death. It was only her growing love for the troubled Victoria, still mourning the death of her mother, that quickened Ewa's resolve to stay on, and try to unravel the mysteries which encompassed their lives--a determination that was to put her own life in danger.