the Name She Chose: a Chiefess of Old Hawai'i and Marriage King Commanded

Kamehameha conquered a kingdom with the help of an Englishman. To keep that Englishman loyal, he gave him a bride from his own blood. Hawaiʻi Island, 1805. Kaʻōanaʻeha is aliʻi - high-born, sacred, bound to the gods and genealogy of her people. When her uncle the king commands her to marry John Young, the pale-handed British sailor who helped forge his empire, she reads the union for exactly what it is: a chain dressed as an honor. She will be a wife by decree. She will not be erased. >Then Kamehameha dies. The kapu falls. And the very weapons John once helped forge are turned against Kaʻōanaʻeha's own brother at Kuamoʻo. Grief tears open the deepest difference between them - her sacred loyalty and his guarded God. To keep her marriage, she must decide whether love requires her to forget the dead. To keep his wife, John must finally confess what his usefulness has cost - and accept that he cannot conquer her conscience to save his own soul. Godly love does not require one soul to disappear inside another. THE NAME SHE CHOSE is a sweeping, reverent romance of old Hawaiʻi - a story of covenant, repentance, mercy, and a love that refuses to erase. Rooted in real people and real history, it honors both a Christian husband's hard-won surrender and a Hawaiian chiefess who never stops being herself. Clean and closed-door. Kissing only. Faith woven with honesty, never preaching. For readers who love a slow-burn covenant marriage, a richly drawn historical world, and a heroine who keeps her name.