The Wayfinder

Named one of Ten Best Books of 2025 by The Wall Street Journal Named one of Ten Best Books of 2025 by The Washington Post Named a Best Novel of 2025 by NPR and Publishers Weekly Named a Best Historical Novel of 2025 by The New York Times “A powerful and original epic . . . Deadly politics, tragic romance and dangerous sea journeys keep the drama at a spirited boil.” —The New York Times “An epic of extraordinary abundance . . . modern and mythological . . . wondrous enough to endure.” —The Wall Street Journal “An epic that feels less created than unearthed . . . The Wayfinder is sui generis—a tapestry of South Pacific myth, archetypal quest, political allegory, environmental jeremiad and feminist revision that feels both ancient and impossibly relevant.” —The Washington Post Talking corpses, poetic parrots, and a fan that wafts the breath of life—this is the world young Korero finds herself thrust into when a mysterious visitor lands on her island, a place so remote its inhabitants have forgotten the word for stranger. Her people are desperate and on the brink of starvation, and the wayward stranger offers them an impossible choice: they can remain in the only home they’ve ever known and await the uncertainty to come, or Korero can join him and venture into unfamiliar waters, guided by only the night sky and his assurance of a bountiful future in the Kingdom of Tonga. What Korero and her people don’t know is that the promised refuge is no utopia—instead, Tonga is an empire at war and on the verge of collapse, a place where brains are regularly liberated from skulls and souls get trapped in coconuts with some frequency. The perils of Tonga are compounded by a royal feud: loyalties are shifting, graves are being opened, and everyone lives in fear of a jellyfish tattoo. Here, survival can rest on a perfectly performed dance or the acceptance of a cup of kava.