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Tori Eldridge’s latest novel, Kauaʻi Storm, is billed as a mystery, the first title in her new Ranger Makalani Pahukula Mystery series. But it’s just as much a story about family and culture

and history.

“You know, all my books tend to do that,” said Eldridge, who’s also published a four-volume mystery-thriller series (the Lily Wong series) and a historical fantasy thriller (Dance Among the

Flames).

“I’ve never written a straight-up mystery or a straight-up thriller ever, and they all have very strong multigenerational, multiethnic family-life drama that’s always incorporated in there,”

Eldridge said. 

For Kauaʻi Storm, Eldridge found inspiration in her own deep-rooted Hawaiian family and her new home, Oregon. The story unfolds through the eyes of a young woman named Makalani Pahukula who

grew up in Hawaiʻi, left to work as a ranger at Crater Lake National Park, and is now back on her native island of Kauaʻi for her grandmother’s 85th birthday celebration. 

Makalani arrives at the family homestead to learn that two of her cousins, 17-year-old Becky and 22-year-old Solomon, are missing. Dismayed by the news, disheartened by how it’s tearing

apart the family, and disappointed by the response from law enforcement, she starts a search. Naturally, she finds a lot more than she bargained for.

Eldridge, who lives in Beaverton, will have a book launch party for Kauaʻi Storm at 2 p.m. Friday, May 17, in the Beaverton City Library. The book publishes May 20. Here are excerpts from a

recent conversation with her.

Eldridge: I’ve been waiting to write about my homeland for a while, but it took five books to feel like I was really ready. So I wrote the Lily Wong series that paid homage to my

Chinese-Norwegian heritage and my martial arts experience. I wrote a standalone set in Brazil. 

Then I kept feeling the pull to write about Hawaiʻi. And I was like, You know what? I’m ready, I’m ready to do this. And if I was going to write a novel set in Hawaiʻi, it had to be more

than a beautiful cultural location. It had to be something that only a Native Hawaiian would really want to tell. That was what was really important to me – that and, as always, family.

The story takes place in a Hawaiʻi that most visitors don’t see, and is infused with Native Hawaiian language. Can you talk about that?

Right now, we are going through yet another renaissance trying to bring back Ōlelo Hawaiʻi, our Native Hawaiian language. Because at one time, we were a sovereign nation and we were one of

the most literate nations in the world, if you can imagine. But then, you know, what happened was America. Back then, they prohibited using the Native Hawaiian language as a method of

teaching in schools. 

So it was very important for me to include words and phrases of Ōlelo Hawaiʻi in the prose, but most especially with certain characters who are keeping the traditions for the family, like

Makalani’s grandmother, known as Tūtū. That and Hawaiian pidgin English – there are some characters that speak it, some that don’t, each to varying degrees.

We all learned from the movie Lilo and Stitch about ‘ohana — no one in the family gets left behind. ‘Ohana is a key theme in this book, but there are many moments when it’s in danger of

becoming just another word. Can you talk about that?

‘Ohana goes beyond family. There is a kuleana, a sacred responsibility to care for your family, have the family care for you. This kind of responsibility is also with the land, with things

that happen in your community. It goes really deep.

There are many moments in this book when characters make choices that conflict with or undermine ‘ohana.

Don’t we all, right? You put your energy in one direction. That means another direction is going to be lacking. You make a priority here. There’s something else that’s going to be

de-prioritized there. It’s a fact of life. 

So yeah, there’s a very huge theme in coming home, reconnecting with the family, sometimes being seen as this outsider, as somebody who no longer understands — when deep in your heart, you

really do, and you’re trying to find a way to reconnect that is going to resonate with the family. And so Makalani is always walking this very delicate path. And then, of course, some of her

relatives are just not thinking about ‘ohana and the greater good at all.

I’m looking at your book cover. It just occurred to me that “storm” relates not only to a force of nature, but also the disruption of the family in this book.

That’s exactly how we came to this title. I love to have multiple elements in a title if I can. And so this one, it was an emotional storm. It was also a physical storm, you know. And Kauaʻi

is probably one of the rainiest places on Earth, so there is that.

Why did you create a protagonist who grew up in Hawaiʻi loving nature but then took that passion to Oregon? 

I grew up in Honolulu, and I left when I graduated from Punahou School, oddly enough with President Barack Obama — he was a classmate of mine. And so I left home, went to Chicago, New York,

Los Angeles, and I spent all that time away, came back to visit. And so that going away, that diaspora, gives a certain longing, a feeling, a fish-out-of-water that I really wanted to

address. 

I picked Oregon because, interestingly enough, many Hawaiians, many Kanaka, come here to Oregon. Why? Because it is so beautiful. It’s green and the trees speak to me, and it just makes you

— even though it’s cold and rains a lot, we get rain in Hawaiʻi — it has that feeling of nature and the land. 

But my real reason for setting [Makalani’s job] in Oregon is because this is where my elder son came to live. My husband and I moved here for the birth of our second grandchild and I have

just been loving it ever since. 

So that’s immediately where I thought, “This is where Makalani needs to work. She needs to be a ranger in Oregon.“ And I did my research, and I went, “Crater Lake National Park. That is the

perfect spot for her.”

Let’s talk about the characters. Who was the most fun to write, and why? 

I love Tūtū. Part of it is, I’m a tūtū. So I really related to her. She’s a bit older than me but still, same thing, and she was very inspirational to me. She was the kupuna of the family,

the keeper of the traditions, the wisdom, the language. She started this homestead. She lives off the land. She raised her son and her daughters there. They still live there with their

families. Makalani was raised there. Every time I was in Tūtū’s, you know, in a chapter writing with her, I felt so connected to everything and to everything that I aspire to be now for my

grandchildren.

Give Tūtū advice! She always seems so wise. What would I know that would go to her? I guess I would say there may come a time when you and your kids go in different ways and if that happens,

don’t lose heart. Just keep the open space and a place for them to come back.

Which character was the most challenging to write, and why? 

Kay Ornelas. What a deep, intricate character she is. She’s of Tūtū’s generation, and she lives in Honolulu. Very completely different experience of being Hawaiian and how she feels about

being Hawaiian, diametrically opposed. As I was writing, she started out pretty clear-cut in this attitude and it was like, oh good, she’ll be the contrast. But the more I wrote about her,

the more I loved her and the more in-depth I saw. 

If you were part of the Pahukula family, where would you put yourself on the family tree, and why?

I’d like to be one of Tūtū’s daughters. That’s one of the things that I love, looking at different characters, imagining what would my life be like if I grew up on a homestead, if I grew up

with a woman like that, with that sense of Hawaiian — it would have been so different. Instead of going to Broadway as an actress, singer, dancer, I probably would have been in a hula hālau.

I would love to be one of her daughters, and hopefully be more like Pāpā, her son, Kawika, and remain connected to the homestead and the land.

I hope they take away an appreciation of the Hawaiian people. So many people love Hawaiʻi. They’re fascinated by it. They want to visit. They want to go again. They have their wonderful

tourist experiences of it. But I want them to see what the Hawaiian life is like. I want them to have, maybe, an appreciation of the issues that Kanaka Maoli, the Native Hawaiians, are

facing today, an appreciation of that and an appreciation of the culture and the language and the sense of living aloha.

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