Within sight of a smart new resort near Savusavu on the Fijian island of Vanua Levu, over a period of

twenty-four hours, local villagers work, love,

laugh and parley their lives while interweaving

their long-held traditions with contemporary

practice. In the same time and place, a

visiting scientist notes and ponders

the threatened environment, and a

young girl seeks answers for her future

from the people and from the ancient

raintree, repository of universal

wisdoms.

 

In this lyrical first novel, Caitlin Scholl, with echoes of the rhythms and resonance of Dylan Thomas' classic Under Milk Wood, recreates the simple and complex, mundane and exotic, practical and philosophical realities of the lives of the permanent and

passing inhabitants of a tropical island

moving to the hypnotic ebb and flow

of the Pacific Ocean within the

growing swell of the world global.