Kikiloa is a freckled, irrepressible, time-surfing Mitochondrial Eve — 200,000-year-old mother of humanity, modern teen trickster and philosophical adventurer whose friend can defeat entropy. Probably.

When a cliff collapses and Kiki vanishes mid-fall, Hazel is left alone with their attacker to begin her coming-of-age, while Kiki’s hopes unravel back to her traumatic childhood, outcast and enslaved in a dystopian prehistoric world.

Circe meets The Midnight Library via Ursula K. Le Guin.

The Kikiloa Chronicles is Erik D. Larson’s emotionally vast, funny, and wild speculative literary debut, carried by Kiki’s unmistakable voice. Irrepressible and imperfect, she wrestles with love, a force like gravity, alive at the core of a universe destined for darkness.