Alicia Upano Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Alicia Upano is a published author.

She was born in Hawai’i, where she grew up. Alicia is the recipient of the Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award Hawai’i. She also received the James Jones First Novel Fellowship as well as a Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Scholarship.

The short fiction that she has written has been featured in publications such as The Southern Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Best Peace Fiction: A Social Justice Anthology, as well as others. Alicia has resided in Asia and both of the continental coasts of the United States. Today she lives on O’ahu along with her family.

Everything Out to Sea is the debut fictional book by Alicia Upano. It is a 2026 release. It is equal parts a great love story and equal parts a story about coming of age. This novel is an incredible debut that takes place over the years, talking about the event of a tsunami absolutely devastating the island of Hawai’i while also nipping a budding romance where it starts.

It is a testament to the horrible things that love can go through and endure. The story goes something like this where Jane will end up falling in love but just as soon as she does, all of what is around her will vanish.

Jane is home for the summer one last time. While she has the chance, she is getting busy working and saving up some extra cash that she intended to use for her senior college before leaving the small island town that she is used to behind her forever in the rearview.

The first time that she glimpses Kenji, she doesn’t remember him all that well. But he starts to become someone that she is not able to forget who has a square jaw and a dimple in the cheek. He’s a Hilo boy. To him, she is Janie, the girl who always had her nose buried and looking at one of her old sketchbooks from high school.

Jane just tries to convince herself that it is just a fling between the two of them. It’s just one summer that is going to be a silly brief thing between them that they can enjoy during a time that is completely carefree and perfect in every way. He’s doing all that she can while trying to go after her dream of being an architect and moving to the continent.

Neither of them anticipated that a tsunami would come along and change everything. It sweeps their families out to sea, and the affair between the two of them gets broken up with the weight of the grief that is pulling them in different directions. Kenji stays in Hawai’i, tied by duty to try and build up their hometown once more.

Jane is pulled apart by the loss and goes after her best friend to California. There is an entire ocean between them until Jane and Kenji at last are able to reunite and find each other again, just on a different coast.

This book contains wonderful prose that is sparkling and may just inspire something in you. It tells the story of two young people as they start to come of age and as they fall in love, build up new families and do their best to try and discover a way that they can get over some of the toughest tragedies when it appears that all else is about to be washed away. Can they fall for each other again and live a good life despite everything that has happened to them? Read this fantastic debut from Alicia Upano to find out!