Did Ulysses S. Grant unwittingly set into motion events leading to the U.S. entry into WWII with the bombing of Hawaii?  Did Yamamoto choose Pearl Harbor as Japan’s first option?  If not, why not?  What might the original target have been?

Rising Son Trilogy

Rising Son is a trilogy of novels tracing the lives of three fictional families through a thoroughly real century of turmoil, passion and war beginning in the mid 19th century. Japanese society is just emerging from twenty centuries of isolation and striding into the modern era.  Each family story wends through the generations as the tides of history sweep them into a collision of cultures, war and fear.

Book one of the series begins with the poverty stricken Sakai family in a remote Japanese village.  They dispatch a son to the New World, with only the clothes on his back, to begin a new life in the cane fields of Hawaii.  His story is one of adapting to a new climate and culture, racial intolerance, institutional discrimination, and efforts to secure a ‘picture bride’.  After the marriage he and his new bride move from Hawaii to California and from there ultimately to Bainbridge Island in Washington State.  They build a successful family farm where many of his children and grandchildren remain, including the beauteous Mary.

Rising Son

Rising Son continues the Sakai family odyssey nearly thirty year later and weaves into the narrative the Akagi family -- dedicated to providing royal service to succeeding Japanese Emperors for generations.  Master manipulators behind the throne, the Akagi clan over the centuries have acted as counselors and envoys of the Emperor.  The pivotal character from this family—Arimoto—becomes the seriously injured soul survivor of an experimental Imperial Navy submarine.  Disastrously—and anonymously—sunk it is a key component in a secret recon of the Puget Sound just prior to the start of the Pacific War.

Before returning to Seattle a missionary preacher and his wife spend years among the mission fields of Hawaii after serving earlier in the rural prefectures of Japan.  The Pearson's strike a lifelong friendship with the newlywed Sakai's while in Hawaii, ultimately facilitating their settlement in the Pacific Northwest. It is their young grandson, Frankie that discovers a mangled stranger in an unfamiliar uniform hiding near his home.  Frankie's father, Joshua Pearson, aids the foreigner's recovery and introduces him to the Sakai family, unwittingly giving the perfect cover for the stranded man.

In time the young Akagi falls in love with Mary and questions his fealty to a family he barely knows and an imperial social structure he never really understood or embraced.

Just as authorities of the United States are piecing together a puzzle that puts them hot on the heels of the transformed imposter, Yamamoto’s fleet attacks Pearl Harbor and everyone’s world is instantly transformed.

Pacific Vespers

Pacific Vespers concludes the trilogy with riveting accounts of the harrowing aftermath of Pearl Harbor. Will the imposter survivor be exposed, or can he avoid detection and live and love in his adopted home?  As fear grips the heart of Americans, those of Japanese ancestry living on the west coast of the United States are targeted; quickly rounded up and interned in isolated ‘War Relocation Centers’. Stories of bravery in the face of uncertainty both at home and on the battlefield all race toward a gripping conclusion.  Touching tales of survival intersect with the horrors of war and resolve in an unexpected finale.

The White House, the splendid palaces of Tsars, Emperors, and Sugar Barons sharply contrast with the dirt floor hovels of humanities most desperate. Eavesdrop on the larger-than-life figures shaping the world since the mid-nineteenth century and see how simple misunderstandings, stitched together with poor statecraft, whipsaw the lives of those they rule.

These are stories of simple people navigating a difficult world.  I invite you to read this tale of fear, racial bigotry, deception, honesty, triumph and love.  It is an adventure romance, a spy thriller and a cautionary tale.  This is an allegory of America.