Early Reviewers

A Detroit family's 15-year struggle to leave everything behind and pursue a more meaningful life at sea.

In 1990s Detroit, Tom and Cindy are tormented by the feeling that life should mean more than their dead-end jobs. They dream of buying a sailboat, leaving it all behind, and sailing around the world with their kids. After a decade of saving, Tom and Cindy finally find a weathered sailboat they can afford. Their daughter names it Hiva Oa, after the mystical island in the Pacific. For years, family and friends work tirelessly to restore Hiva Oa to her former ocean-crossing self. Yet, just as the ocean is finally within reach, Tom is diagnosed with cancer. With time running out, Cindy pushes Tom to decide whether to keep wasting his uncertain future rebuilding a boat that might never set sail, or cast off the lines now and head to the atolls of the South Pacific before it’s too late.

Fifteen Years to Hiva Oa is a tender yet raw novel about what one family is willing to sacrifice in the pursuit of a life worth living.