In this extraordinary fiction debut-rich with love and betrayal, history and intellectual
passion-two remarkable narratives converge on Easter Island, one of the most remote
places in the world.

It is 1913. Elsa Pendleton travels from England to Easter Island
with her husband, an anthropologist sent by the Royal Geographical Society to study
the colossal moai statues, and her younger sister. What begins as familial duty for
Elsa becomes a grand adventure; on Easter Island she discovers her true calling.
But, out of contact with the outside world, she is unaware that World War I has been
declared and that a German naval squadron, fleeing the British across the South Pacific,
is heading toward the island she now considers home.

Sixty years later, Dr. Greer
Farraday, an American botanist, travels to Easter Island to research the island’s
ancient pollen, but more important, to put back the pieces of her life after the
death of her husband.

A series of brilliant revelations brings to life the parallel
quests of these two intrepid young women as they delve into the centuries-old mysteries
of Easter Island. Slowly unearthing the island’s haunting past, they are forced to
confront turbulent discoveries about themselves and the people they love, changing
their lives forever.

Easter Island is a tour de force of storytelling that will
establish Jennifer Vanderbes as one of the most gifted writers of her generation.