The Hawaiian people lived in an isolated Eden and fought over it for centuries. When pale strangers with 'pointed heads', strange 'skins', and magical weapons came from beyond the horizon on 'floating islands', the Hawaiians thought they were gods. One man understood these 'gods' were men, and that their arrival had changed everything for his people. He would go on to defeat his rivals, unite the Hawaiian Islands, and found a new kingdom at the crossroads of the Pacific Ocean. His name was Kamehameha. Once There Was Fire brings a little-understood, historically remote era to life through the words and actions of its memorable characters: Kamehameha, his strong-willed and rebellious consort, Ka'ahumanu, his favorite brother, Keli'imaika'i, and Kamehameha's sons, nephews, comrades in arms, haole advisers, and bitter enemies. The novel invites readers to see Hawaii of the mid-18th and early 19th centuries as the old Hawaiians themselves might have seen and experienced it on the cusp of their passage from splendid isolation to the wider world.