Even though this is historical fiction, I felt my eyes opening as I read it. Living in North Carolina, I haven't been as exposed to the culture and history of Hawaii beyond what you see in TV and movies and I wish that I had read this before our last trip to the islands, so that I could better appreciate some of the places we had been.

The book bounces back and forth between the past, where it tells the story of the king and his consort, and modern times, where a young man is trying to learn more about his family's past and is brought to this story. There is an NPR feel to the modern story and that appealed to me very much, along with the quest to learn about a family's connections.

An enjoyable read that took me back to my time in Hawaii and made me want to visit again. ( )

I became engrossed in this book. Perhaps the best thing that came of it, for me, was that I learned that it is based on a real person - a woman named Mele Kainuha Keaala Azbill, half-Hawaiian and half Native American. Her father was a man named O'Ka'iana who came to northern California from Hawai'i. Mele was in fact distantly related to King Kalakaua, did meet him in Sacramento when she recited her genealogy, and did become his official kahili bearer. Her grave is in Chico, CA. If interested, check out a little book called "John Sutter in Hawai'i and California 1838-1839" by Willaim J. Breault, available at the Sutter's Fort gift shop in Sacramento. Back to Houston's book, though. Found myself thinking that if Rosa was really a Hawaiian tutu, she'd kick Dan's lemu for calling her by her first name :-). Plus the whole bit about Dan basically being a white guy who finds out that he's Hawaiian and Native American and saves the day...well it's a bit much. Overall, though, a great read. ( )

I really enjoy this writer's work. Snow Mountain Passage was excellent but Bird of Another Heaven is even more rewarding. An important theme seems to be the power of storytelling and its ability to redeem us. The novel spans two time periods (1980s and 1880s) joined by one writer/storyteller's accidental discovery of his family's history in both California and Hawaii. The protagonist, Sheridan Brody, develops his own story while reaching out to his paternal grandmother. He finds the family he never knew through the diary of his great-grandmother, which tells part of the epic story of the last Hawaiian king, the poet David Kalakaua. ( )