Hanalei Moon By A.J. Llewellyn

Five Angels - Reviewed by: Whitney for Fallen Angel Reviews
Hanalei MoonGabriel Loe is a rising star in the world of professional surfing. It doesn’t always pay the bills, but he has a shot at the world championship title, which should bring in some cash. He also has a boyfriend whom he adores and an interest in a start-up surfboard company. When he heads out to catch some swells on his favorite beach, his mind is full of the upcoming world championship to the point where he miscalculates a couple of big bre aks. He gets tossed around and banged up, but he expects that sort of thing to happen occasionally. No big deal, right? What he doesn’t expect when he drags himself out of the water is to find out that he has lost twelve years of his life.

Now something of a local celebrity Gaby finds himself fending off reporters as he recovers from his injuries in the hospital. Everything has changed for him, and it’s not for the better. He finds that his boyfriend has married a woman and now wants nothing to do with him and that his so-called partner in the surfboard industry has swindled him. The only positive side to this is that he still seems to have the affection of an old lover, Pono Morrison. Pono never gave up on him – not for a dozen long years – and now he offers his love and support unconditionally to Gaby.

As Gaby works to clear up the mess that his life has become, he begins to see who his real friends have always been. And he also comes to realize that with this beginning come new opportunities and a new outlook on love.

With Hanalei Moon: The Ace of Swords, A. J. Llewellyn has given his readers another chance to experience the magic of the Hawaiian Islands. This story references the tarot card Ace of Swords, which connotes rebirth, new beginnings, and understanding life after a period of disillusionment. Mr. Llewellyn has done an excellent job keeping this story in the spirit of that card, because the main character, Gaby, undergoes such a rebirth when he emerges from the ocean after twelve years. Although he is initially devastated by what has occurred, he is soon able to look back on his previous life and see who his friends were and who was possibly just using him. Although this story is not especially long, it is filled with well-developed and colorful characters. The heroes are extremely sympathetic and are also just plain nice. Definitely people that you would want to know and perhaps even hang out with while listening to their stories. The antagonists, while they are not especially evil, will definitely elicit a boo and a hiss or two, and we hope that they’ll get their just reward at the end. In all, Hanalei Moon is a jewel of a story and is filled with the love and zest for life that are typical of Mr. Llewellyn’s work. Bravo.
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