Excerpt from Daughter of Moloka'i by Alan Brennert, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The warmth of Sister's embrace cast out the chill of rejection … for now.

Over the course of the next year, three more couples would ask to see Ruth. With each request her heart soared like a kite and after each rejection she was dashed to earth, convinced there was something lacking in her. She was hapa, half, incomplete. Half a cookie; who would want that? And eventually she learned a valuable lesson: she learned not to hope.

On Sunday evenings the parish priest would preside over the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, and as the older girls sang prayers and devotions in the chapel, the youngest sat in a classroom, supervised by an older girl whose job was to read Bible stories to them. On the last Sunday night of October 1920—which also happened to be All Hallow's Eve—that girl was Maile, who extinguished all the lights in the room save for a lone candle and regaled the little girls with a less devout tale about an obake that resided inside a koa tree. When the tree was cut down for lumber, the things made from it—a spear, a calabash, the handle of a knife—all contained a piece of the ghost, which was not at all happy at being dismembered and set about doing the same thing to everyone who owned a piece of that koa wood.

Ruth—now four years old—grew bored and quietly left the room. At first she intended to return to bed, but as she stood in the corridor she heard something that sounded like … whimpering? But not a human whimpering.

Curious, Ruth went into an empty classroom, stood on tiptoe at a window, and looked out.

It was dark and cloudy and the only light on the grounds came from the flicker of candles in the chapel. Ruth managed to push open the window an inch or two. Now she could tell that the whimpering was clearly coming from the side of the road—Meyers Street—bordering the convent.

Then she saw a shadow detach itself from the dark contours of a noni, mulberry, bush. It shuffled on four legs, low to the ground, until its hindquarters dropped and it sat there in the dimness.

It was a dog!

Ruth had seen dogs before—some of the local farmers owned them, and she even got to pet one once. Thrilled, she raced out of the classroom and out the back door. As she rounded the Home, she saw the dog sitting on the side of the road, whining plaintively.

She slowed down and approached it.

"Hi, dog," she said softly. "Hi."

It turned its head to her and its black eyes, ringed in amber, shone in the darkness.

Ruth got close enough to gently, cautiously, stroke its back. It didn't object. "Good dog," she said happily.

It was a scruffy, medium-sized mutt with matted, light brown fur—but to Ruth it was the most beautiful dog she had ever seen. As she petted it, it stopped whimpering, rubbing its wet nose against her arm. She scratched under its chin, its head tipped up and its mouth opened in a smile.

As she stroked its side she could feel its bony ribs.

"You hungry?" she asked. "I'll get some food. You stay here, okay?" When she got up and moved away the dog started to follow, but she put up a hand and said, as loudly as she dared, "No! Stay here. I'll be back."

The dog stopped, sat. "Good doggie!" she whispered, then ran back into the Home, down the corridor, and into the kitchen.

Maria Nunes, the Home's Portuguese cook, was washing the last of the supper dishes when Ruth burst in and announced, "I'm hungry!"

Maria had to smile at the urgency in the little girl's voice. "Didn't you finish your supper tonight?"

"I did. But I'm still hungry."

"Well…" Maria went to the big icebox and opened it. "We got a little Sunday ham left over … I can make you a sandwich, you like?"

"Oh yes. Thank you!" Ruth said.

A minute later, Ruth accepted the fat sandwich, thanked Maria again, and rushed out of the kitchen. She worried that the dog might have left, but when she emerged from the Home, he—he seemed like a "he"—was still sitting patiently where she had left him.

Excerpted from Daughter of Moloka'i by Alan Brennert. Copyright © 2019 by Alan Brennert. Excerpted by permission of St. Martin's Press. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.