I didn’t know I spoke British until I got to college.
Someone heard me say “rubbish” and tilted their head like I was about to offer them a spot of tea.
“Where are you from?”
“Hawaii,” I said.
They blinked. “Then why do you sound British?”
I didn’t. At least, I didn’t think I did. But apparently saying rubbish instead of trash was enough to make people assume I grew up in a cravat with a monocle.
That wasn’t the only word that tripped people up. I also said things like “go stay”, “like dat”, and “pau already.” I wasn’t trying to be confusing. I was just speaking the way I’d always spoken.
Because I grew up speaking Pidgin English.
For those who aren’t in the know, Pidgin is what happens when people from different cultures—and different languages—are thrown together and need to communicate. In Hawaii, that meant folks from Portugal, China, Japan, the Philippines, and more, all working in the pineapple and sugar cane fields. Pidgin is how they got by.
It’s fast. It’s raw. It skips grammar like a rebel—but it gets the point across.
“You like go?” can mean anything from Let’s head out to Let’s get out of here before something bad happens. That’s the beauty and the chaos of it.
So yeah, I grew up speaking a patchwork of English. Sometimes American. Sometimes British. Sometimes pure Pidgin.
And somehow, all of that led to me writing international popcorn thrillers—the kind of binge-worthy fiction packed with twisty plots, high-stakes danger, and fierce women who don’t flinch.
Which brings me to DarkBright.
One word.
Two meanings.
It’s the name of the new Abby Kane thriller I’m releasing in July. And just like my upbringing, the world in DarkBright doesn’t follow the rules. People speak in riddles. Truths get buried under polite smiles. Everyone’s got their own way of communicating.
Abby Kane, the FBI agent at the center of the chaos, walks into a community that looks perfect on the outside. But just like me realizing rubbish wasn’t standard English, she finds out quickly: nothing means what she thought it did.
Think Silence of the Lambs meets Stepford Wives.
DarkBright drops July 26th.
Check it out to see where this Pidgin-speaking boy ended up. Spoiler alert: not sipping tea in a cravat.