Debut novelist Shay Kauwe will appear at Vroman’s Bookstore on Thursday at 7 p.m. to discuss and sign her fantasy novel “The Killing Spell,” joined in conversation by Keala Kendall, a New York Times and USA Today bestselling hapa Native Hawaiian author, according to her publisher.
The novel, published in April by Saga Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, is set partly in a future Los Angeles where Hawaiian clans have built a homeland after a catastrophic flood. According to Simon & Schuster, “The Killing Spell” follows Kea Petrova, a 25-year-old Hawaiian clan leader who must solve a murder to clear her name in a world where the Hawaiian language carries its own form of magic.
The event will take place at Vroman’s at 695 E. Colorado Blvd. Vroman’s lists the appearance under its adult event programming. The store has noted on its event page that “a purchase of the book from Vroman’s is greatly appreciated and makes events like this possible.”
Kauwe was born and raised on the island of O’ahu and grew up on the Hawaiian Homelands in Waimanalo, according to her publisher’s biography. She later worked in Russia as an English teacher and now lives in Honolulu, where she works in telecommunications and education with the Hawaii Literacy Project. “The Killing Spell” is her first novel.
The book carries early praise from established authors of fantasy and Pacific Islander fiction. Rebecca Roanhorse, a New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author of the Between Earth & Sky trilogy, called it “an absolutely fantastic debut,” writing that the novel “serves as a thoughtful exploration of the consequences of colonization and the choices the colonized are forced to make in order to survive.”
Chris McKinney, author of “The Tattoo” and the Water City Trilogy, wrote that the book is “high-spirited, inventive, and action-packed,” weaving together “magic and romance, family and resistance, while showcasing the power of ‘olelo — the Hawaiian spoken word.”
Kendall, who will join Kauwe in conversation, is the author of “How Far I’ll Go” and “Nobody Gets Left Behind” in Disney’s “A Twisted Tale” series, and of “That Which Feeds Us: A Hawaiian Gothic,” according to her website. A hapa Native Hawaiian author, she was born in Honolulu, raised on Molokaʻi, and lives in Los Angeles. She is a cofounder of Pacific Islanders in Publishing.
In a Publishers Weekly conversation in May, Kendall said, “It’s exciting to see people engaging with Hawaiian identity and Hawaiian stories.”
The paperback edition of “The Killing Spell” is priced at $18 at Vroman’s. The bookstore can be reached at (626) 449-5320.
When the novel’s UK rights were acquired by Solaris in 2024, Kauwe said, “I’m so excited to be joining the Solaris family and to bring my island-inspired story to another island, though of a different sort, all the way on the other side of the world.”
