Publisher's Synopsis
It is the end of the year 1815 and French cartographer-botanist Jean Luc Moulin is plying the Pacific aboard the Russian-commanded Rurik when a fight he could never remember landed him inexplicably, by way of a fortuitous current, in a place he would never forget: Hawai'i. Washed up on the shores of the Big Island, he is rescued by the yellow-hued hands of an indigenous woman with the weight of the world on her shoulders.
'Olena would have lived out the rest of her years in obscurity, tending to her garden and her namesake plant turmeric in peaceful seclusion. But after reviving the handsome Jean Luc, her desires to love and be loved pit her against the need to put an end to the curse of slavery coursing through her veins.
As the slave and the foreigner play at romance, a young Hawaiian chief breaks a kapu. The brat's status as an ali'i absolves him of the crime, so the hunt is on for an untouchable to atone on his behalf. First the ceremonial drums resound, then come the pounding of fists at the door. 'Olena knows that the time has come for her to pay for being born kauwa. But Jean Luc Moulin cannot let them take away from him the one he loves, the woman whose hands are stained yellow with turmeric.
