Author Alan Brennert has followed up his best-selling debut novel "Moloka'i" with "Honolulu," released March 3 by St. Martin's Press.

While "Moloka'i" was historical fiction based on life for Hansens's disease patients exiled to Kalaupapa, in "Honolulu," Brennert focuses on a picture bride from Korea who comes to Hawai'i in 1914 in search of a better life.

Brennert, who lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif., said he wanted to set his new novel against the "glamour days" of Honolulu in the 1920s and 30s, but against the romantic backdrop of Matson liners, the China Clipper and Hollywood celebrities' vacations, he focused on the "reality" of life for immigrants who worked on plantations or lived in poverty.