David Luders

Break the Sky David Luders

It is 750 years ago. Coming across a tranquil island world, Tongan seafarers discover its hallowed narcotic drink made from a sacred plant and forbidden to all but local chiefs. Proposing to take it home to their ruler, they set off fierce disputes. At the same time, the budding romance of a high chief's daughter and a young man of modest birth is abruptly blocked by her betrothal and the train of events set off has dire results. By subterfuge a trade in the drug begins, though the means of growing the sacred plant is jealously guarded. The trade grows, the contact bringing new ideas but also tensions. In distant Tonga's expanding island empire, rulers change. More than once, a force is sent to seize the hallowed plant but by curious twists of circumstances, the attempts are thwarted. Even in a quiet corner of the world a drug, however mild, drives conflict and change. Break The Sky is the Second in the SAGA OF PACIFIC ISLANDS series of novels. About the Author: Australian by birth, David Luders had been an agricultural consultant, twice Officer-in-Charge of Australian Antarctic stations and policy officer in Canberra before migrating to Vanuatu when it was still under joint British-French colonial rule. By the early '90s when he began research for his books, he had the confidence of the local people who revealed histories quite unsuspected by the wider world. Astounded by the rich lode uncovered, he published two papers on the subject in professional journals before embarking on this series of novels. Now a noted local historian, he lives not far from the capital and divides his time between farming, consulting and writing.