Exotic Fiji–the backdrop to Fiji: A Novel

At the public market in Fiji the ‘heap’ is the unit of measure– as in ‘I’ll take a heap of cauliflowers’.  At the handicraft market ‘brain pickers’ are offered to tourists.  Contemporary Fijians may not be proud of their cannibal past but they are not ashamed of it, either.  They laughingly sell reproductions of the cannibal eating implements to visiting tourists.  It sets a tone.

Fiji: A Novel is an old fashioned romance novel set in the mid-1800s in Fiji.  It was before European missionaries converted the islands to Christianity and dissuaded kidnapping, slavery, ritual murder, and cannibalism.  It was also just before the British added Fiji as a colony.

The story takes place when the Europeans (missionaries, arms merchants, businessmen, and all sorts of miscreants) were encountering natives in Fiji.  Spoiler alert: some very nasty things happen. 

The co-authors, a father from New Zealand and his Australian son,  have chosen three white people as the main characters—a missionary and his young and beautiful  daughter from England on their way to convert Fijians—and a rough and tumble American musket seller.  Around the missionary’s daughter and the bad-boy American arms seller there exists many good and a few very bad Fijian natives.  This setting is intensely exotic and the co-authors deserve credit for bring this dramatic period of history to life.  The story is exciting and many of the characters are memorable. 

I found the Missionary’s daughter unlikely.  She lusts after men like some 21 Century porn princess—not like a young daughter of a Methodist Pastor fresh from England.  The male characters are more believable.  So it’s an old fashioned romance novel with an oddly modern heroine, set in the tumult of 1840s Fiji.  Perhaps perfect beach reading?