"BEADS, BOYS AND THE BUDDHA," BY WENDY MIYAKE, LOTUS MOON IN LOVE, $13.95

It's not often that O'ahu residents get to read stories that reflect everyday life on the island. Writer and creativewriting teacher Wendy Miyake was born and raised in Mililani, and that's the world she writes about in her debut short-story collection.

The protagonist in "The Japanese Evita and Her Daughter-in-Law" has parents who are "rather notorious: Japanese senior citizens, famous in Mililani for asking too many questions."

In another story, Harumi Goto is pathologically afraid of geckos, and has serial dreams about them.

What the book's seven female Japanese-American characters have in common is man trouble (or lack thereof), and show that there are other things to do with your life than to "wait, wish and whine," Miyake says in a news release.