Manuia Heinrich's debut YA novel, Salt Water Blood, is a satisfying, stimulating mystery/thriller depicting two siblings whose plan to leave home for a better life is thwarted by a potential murder charge.
Before Moe (pronounced mo-eh) was born, she was claimed by Moana, the ocean. "As the story went," Moana's "waves whispered" to the girl's parents on their island home of Vaeaga, "convincing them to name [their daughter] after her": Moemoana means "ocean dream." This connection means Moe can hear Moana's thoughts, giving her the ability to see the future, but this gift has only brought Moe pain. She was forced to experience her father's death and her mother's choice to abandon her and her younger brother, Tao, before both events happened.
Now 18, Moe is making plans for her and 17-year-old Tao to leave Vaeaga and build new lives in Paris. But one evening, four days before they are due to leave, Tao's girlfriend goes missing. Tao has no memory of the night, the argument they reportedly had, or how blood ended up all over his clothing. Because Moe and Tao are members of the local Indigenous community, the gendarme (soldiers who oversee law enforcement) quickly assume the worst. Moe's desire to leave the island behind clashes with her need to save Tao, and she uses her hated connection with Moana to solve the girl's disappearance.
Heinrich draws from her experience as "ta'ta Mā'ohi, an Indigenous person of Mā'ohi/French Polynesian origins" and the history of French colonization on the Mā'ohi Nui archipelagos to construct the fictional island of Vaeaga. She neatly focuses on one family's trauma to contextualize the experiences of the wider community, whose issues are rooted in the historical impact of nuclear testing conducted by France between 1966 and 1996. Heinrich gracefully develops a character who, through extraordinary circumstances, learns how much the past is tied to her family's and friends' struggles in the present. She brings together historical, ecological, and colonial crimes and highlights their ongoing fallout in a devastating but comprehensible way. Moe's ocean powers will likely capture readers' imaginations, as will her desperate race to solve the mystery of the missing girl and exonerate Tao. Salt Water Blood is an unflinching account of the impacts of generational trauma as framed by a young woman's fierce love for and loyalty to her brother. --Michelle Anya Anjirbag, freelance reviewer
Shelf Talker: Manuia Heinrich's debut YA novel is a gripping thriller and bildungsroman rooted in Indigenous culture, community, and contemporary issues of environmental justice and antinuclear activism.