A Half Flower
Mira KanehlPeril unfolds in the historical fiction and magical realism novel A Half Flower in which Balzac Voclain, an angry, revolutionist doctor with inexplicable visions when someone dies, fights for freedom and justice. In 1816 Lyon, Balzac walks from primary school into an unexpected, gruelling spectacle at the city's main square: the beheading of his uncle in law. His anger draws him into one of the many political activist groups spawned by the French Revolution, and as an adult his own staging at the city square is iminent.
He flees France and disembarks in Hawai'i, where he pursues his surgeon career and prepares a place for his friends. The queen being Protestant, Balzac finds all Frenchmen fled, and discovers the old Hawai'ian beliefs, filled with magic and legends, forcefully pressed to remote areas or replaced by Protestantism; it feels like a déjà vu. Now involved with a stunning Hawai'ian woman, he wants to live with her, and they join forces with the...