THREE MORE NOVELS SET ON PACIFIC ISLANDS

Easter Island Jennifer Vanderbes (2003)

Two women in two different eras both become obsessed by tthe mysterious culture oof Easter Island in this haunting and imaginative first novel. In 1913, Elsa Beazley, newly married to an anthropologist, immerses herself in the island’s past and present. In a parallel narrative set 60 years later, a recently widowed American botanist arrives on Easter Island and is drawn into a relationship which proves to hold a connection to Elsa.

Euphoria Lily King (2014)

Inspired I by the life of o Margaret Mead, the t controversial anthropologist a who wrote w Coming of Age in Samoa, this evocative novel unfolds a love triangle against it an unusual backdrop. In Papua New Guinea, Nell – the character based on Mead – and her husband join forces with another anthropologist and head upriver to research a remote tribe. They end by learning as much about themselves as the people they are supposedly studying.

The Last Bookaneer Matthew Pearl (2015)

I n Samoa, self-exiled Scottish S writer Robert Louis L Stevenson races r against approaching a death to finish fi his final novel. To T the island comes the t flamboyant, unscrupulous Pen Davenport, a so-called ‘bookaneer’, who plans to steal Stevenson’s manuscript, take it to New York and flog it to the highest bidder. On a tropical island, against a backdrop of simmering violence, a complicated relationship develops between the would-be thief and the ailing genius.