THE MONSTERS OF AHI’KOA · BOOK FIVE
Out now · Released September 23
Rootbound
Love takes root.
Marisol Vega came to Ahi’koa to find a flower everyone thought was extinct. Someone in the forest has been clearing a path for her. He is made of root and vine, remembers every leaf she has taken, and wants her to stay.
But the rain is late, the old trees are dying, and staying has to be Marisol’s choice.
THE ELEMENTEarth
THE MONSTERJungle entity
THE AUTHORA.K. Rook
Before you read
The couple. Marisol Vega, a 41-year-old ethnobotanist raised in the Bronx, and a jungle entity whose body is woven from root, bark, and vine. He is part of the living cloud forest.
The world. Contemporary Ahiʻkoa’s upland cloud forest: a fictional Pacific island, a field cabin, and old ʻōhiʻa groves.
Romance threads. A scientist and an elemental monster; learning to stay; love rooted in place; belonging and choice.
What’s at stake. Marisol searches for a flower thought extinct while drought and disease threaten the old forest. Her work, her changing body, and the choice to stay all carry a cost.
Heat. Adult romance with explicit, on-page sexual content.
Content notes (may reveal story details)
A sexual encounter in which a partner holds too hard and does not stop when told no; later nonsexual restraint. Both are addressed as breaches in the story. Also: plant disease and the death of old trees; grief for a spouse who died before the story; progressive illness and bodily change; a landslide with trapped characters; a violent confrontation with a trespasser. These notes draw on the novel’s own content notice.
