Chita

A woman's life is forever changed by a hurricane on a Gulf Coast island in this "evocative parable of people living the good life on the edge of the abyss" (The Washington Post).

In the mid-nineteenth century, the wealthy find relief from the New Orleans heat on the barrier island of L'Ile Dernière. But when a cataclysmic storm arrives and leaves devastation in its wake, young Chita barely escapes with her life. Presuming that her father, a Creole businessman, has been swept away, she takes refuge on a nearby island where she is adopted by a Spanish family, changing the course of her future.

Written during a ten-year stay in New Orleans and inspired by true historical events, Chita was Lafcadio Hearn's first novel. It is filled with rich description, beautiful language, and emotion, and evokes a true sense of the location and the era.