Found and Lost in Paradise (The Willow Chronicle)

Within The Willow Chronicle is an epic, two-volume, coming of age story comprised of At Sea and Found and Lost in Paradise. Each of these novels can stand alone; however, together they tell the story of two young American women who begin a great adventure in 1956 by escaping from the puritanical world of small town America to what they hope is a liberating world of French Polynesia aboard a stolen, 60-foot yawl. The two women — Willow "Billie" Benton and Brittany "Bambi" Macey — endure tumultuous months that erase whatever remains of their adolescent innocence. Under the mentorship of Oliana Teriierooiterai, the last Marquesan Chieftainess on Hiva Oa, Willow and Bambi learn to cope with a world where the only restraints to satisfying their desires are consent and imagination. The inclusion of significant doses of greed and betrayal, a touch of cannibalism, and a beautiful and faithful mahu — a third gender person named Mahana who becomes a friend and lover to both Billie and Bambi — creates a story set in a world that is far different from the America that Billie and Bambi have left behind. But the greater world remains, and it is a world to which they must return, a world where they learn that conflicts are resolved by fate, courage, perseverance, and a strategic return. Read more