Under A Jungle Moon

Third Place Winner for Best Novel in the Delaware Press Association Professional Communications Contest 2023! Raised in a cloistered convent, world-renowned American investigative reporter Vanessa Gold uncovers crimes and builds cross-cultural bridges. While exposing the flaws of others, she conceals dark secrets and lies about her own past. In 1990, an American company constructs a gold mine on a remote Indonesian jungle island. Previously untouched by modern society, an isolated tribe is living a Stone Age existence. When indigenous tribal woman, Lukeem, reports her first sighting of the miners' mysterious helicopter to her tribe, she is accused of being a sorceress. By tradition, she is to be sacrificed to the river spirit. Tribal tradition links the timing of her sacrifice to the next full moon. Vanessa intercedes in the intercultural drama along with her life partner, cameraman Tony, best friend and anthropologist Canyon, and Turning Prism, their Oscar-winning documentary team. The unexpected unveiling of her estranged mother's identity and the appearance of a nemesis from Vanessa's past, threaten to destroy her life's work, her relationship with Tony, and the reputations of Canyon and her colleagues. Fascinating cultural norms are explored as Lukeem, her son, and Vanessa escape together through the jungle seeking Lukeem's salvation. Can Vanessa bridge the vast cultural gap between the Paleolithic past and the 20th-century present? Can she prevent the devastating and consequential exposé of her own life?