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.