I mentioned when I’m not writing novels, I work with Mona Foundation as a Development Director supporting education projects in countries around the world.

Rainn Wilson from NBC TV’s, ”The Office,” is Mona Foundation’s celebrity spokesman. He joined us for a Mona fundraiser in Austin, Texas. (I’m not scared even though I look that way.) I’ve had the pleasure of working with Rainn at a couple of fundraisers and he’s actually a very generous and down-to-earth guy.

Popular Austin radio host Khotan Harmon asked me to come on a show called, “Soul Talk.” She gave me two hours notice to prepare for an hour show on “Finding Your Life’s Purpose.” (I’d be interested to know if I actually helped anyone out there find their life’s purpose!)

Listen to the interview here.

Here I am with Khotan Harmon (center) at a fundraiser for Mona Foundation (www.monafoundation.org) to benefit a project for rural women in Indore, India. When I’m not writing novels, I work with Mona Foundation to support education projects around the world in countries like Cambodia, Tanzania, Brazil and Haiti.

The Last Aloha was recently reviewed for Honolulu Weekly! See what they had to say below.

Drama in old Hawaii

Gaellen Quinn’s first novel explores the shifting tides of loyalty and passion in late-19th century Honolulu. With a sharp eye for detail and what one feels is a very good ear–or at least a very convincing one– for the cadences and tones of both the haole and Hawaiian aristocracy of that period, Quinn offers a tale of discovery and intrigue that holds the reader’s interest almost from the first page.

Laura Jennings arrives in Honolulu from San Francisco to live with missionary relatives. She is curious about the ways of this unfamiliar land and is quickly chagrined to find her hosts among those plotting against the kingdom. Leaving her relatives behind, Jennings falls in with the royal family and is soon at the center of fast-moving events. The familiar trope of naïve-young-woman-finds-nobility-among-the-savages-and-learns-something-in-the-process lurks dangerously near the surface for the first few chapters here, but gives way to a more nuanced portrait of a kingdom’s final breaths.

–Ragnar Carlson

Click here to see the review online at www.honoluluweekly.com

The Last Aloha Front Cover

“Poppies” (1890). Painted in Great Britain by Princess Ka`iulani, heir to the Hawaiian throne, at age fifteen.

Author’s Note

In 1889, Princess Ka`iulani was sent to school in England. While she was abroad, the descendants of American missionaries in the Hawaiian Islands actively plotted to overthrow the monarchy. Having already forcibly reduced the monarchy’s power, they were maneuvering to take over the government completely.

The princess’s painting suggests her own inner landscape. She often admitted feeling desperately homesick for her beloved islands; and the bay and coastal mountains, though painted in Great Britain, take on a strong resemblance to the shape of Diamond Head and the curve of Waikiki.

These icons of Ka`iulani’s island home fade into the barren background, covered over by Western plants: the red poppy, known for its drowsy, narcotic effect, which can ultimately cause death; and the yellow dandelion, a noxious weed that propagates itself through the soil and the air to choke out other flowers.

Red and yellow are the colors of the royal ali`i, the rulers of Hawaii. Did the princess’s art depict how Western influence was usurping that power, and killing the land and its people?

Art is mysterious, and there’s no way to know if these images were conscious or unconscious. Princess Ka`iulani left no record of why she painted the picture this way. It is certain, however, that she knew of the Western agitators’ intrigues, and her royal family’s heroic struggle to save the Hawaiian kingdom.