Queen's Journey, A

There are few more intriguing and captivating characters in the history of Hawaii than its last queen, Liliuokalani--the island monarch who could just as easily read Shakespeare as ''sit barefooted on a woven mat.'' Told with mesmerizing detail by master storyteller James D. Houston, A Queen's Journey captures the deep ambiguities of Liliuokalani's magnetic personality and the tumultuous times in which she lived. Houston (1933-2009) was perhaps the only writer with the literary talent, courage, and deep knowledge of Hawaiian culture and history needed to tell this story, and although he died before finishing the novel that was to be his masterwork, we are lucky to have this first part, which stands alone as a fully realized and moving portrait of the queen and her time.