Author Toby Neal releases memoir

Toby (Wilson) Neal grew up on laid-back Kauai, but her memoir, “Freckled: A Memoir of Growing Up Wild in Hawaii,” is a fast-paced story of growing up a homeless surfer kid and making her way to college at Boston University.

The book covers a period from 1965-1983 on Kauai, and contains a foreword by John Wehrheim, documentarian and creator of the Taylor Camp photos and film.

Neal earned degrees in psychology, human services and social work after leaving Kauai. She returned to Hawaii in 1999, settling on Maui, where she worked for the state Department of Education as a counselor for 12 years before beginning a full-time writing career.

She’s written more than 30 mystery, thriller and romance novels and sold more than a million copies worldwide, most of them mysteries that take place in Hawaii. Neal’s work has won numerous awards, and Kirkus Reviews calls her prose “effortless and elegant.”

Book research for “Freckled” took Neal back to the North Shore of Oahu, where her family lived in a beach cottage from 1967–1970, and then out to Ke‘e Beach on Kauai where the family lived near the famous Taylor Camp. She witnessed the landing of the Hokulea in 1976 and lived through several natural disasters as she grew up in a family that struggled with poverty, mental health and substance abuse.

Living on Kauai an era before TV came to the island, and frequently homeless, Neal entertained herself by reading and making up stories.

“Everything that happens in our lives is the stuff of story,” Neal says, “and sometimes the best stories are true.”

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Bill Buley, editor-in-chief, can be reached at 245-0457 or bbuley@thegardenisland.com.