Dale Kornreich’s novel, Santa Cruz—The Island of Limuw, transports the reader on an intelligent, yet pulse-pounding adventure that uses California’s Channel Islands as a backdrop to this suspenseful story.

A 160 year old parchment, filled with verses obscured by innuendo and metaphor, the correct interpretation of which would reveal a government cover-up and the discovery of a fortune in gold.  An old but sagacious Chumash Indian who guards an island secret that goes back thousands of years.  An encounter with a rare and gigantic sea creature that repays its human benefactors with their lives.  A seemingly impossible quest to find the grave of a sixteenth century Spanish conquistador.  A Secluded valley where fantastical and supposedly extinct animals continue to thrive.  A greedy and unethical Aquafarmer whose contaminated products cause a national health crises and who will stop at nothing, even murder, to protect his interests.  A celebrated marine biologist, and the protagonist's eventual love interest, risks her life in order to help shut down the aquafarms.  All these thrilling subplots tie beautifully together in this page-turner of a novel set on and around Santa Cruz Island, the site of the second longest sea cave in the world.  It is in this spectacular ‘Painted Cave’ where the book comes to an exciting and breathtaking conclusion.

Santa Cruz, Dale Kornreich’s well researched, yet imaginative debut novel, takes the reader on a non-stop riveting adventure—on the land and under the sea—where every scene is visually saturated with descriptive imagery and where many facets of California’s Channel Islands – their colorful history, and their unparalleled beauty – are verbally polished to a rare gem quality.

The author is currently working on the sequel to Santa Cruz.