JANUARY OF 2025!

THE FINGERNAIL KING

While Hawaii has long been famous for its lovely white sand beaches, balmy trade winds, and clear blue ocean, Mr. Hosch’s new book takes us in a very different direction.

The Fingernail King goes behind the scenes in Waikiki Beach to look at the clever con artists and predatory scammers who feed on the island’s vulnerable tourist industry, year after year.

After working as a volunteer in a yoga organization for many years, a penniless thirty-year-old is offered a part-time job and free rent in Honolulu. With no other option available, he accepts the offer and lands in Hawaii with nothing but a tattered suitcase, a few dollars, and an old guitar. The year is 1976.

Since his most fervent desire is to become a professional artist, he answers an ad to paint miniatures and is hired to decorate and sell inexpensive shell jewelry in a famous Waikiki Beach shopping center. This leads to a gig painting Hawaiian fingernails which, much to his surprise, goes viral as a popular tourist attraction.

Seduced by the exotic charm of Waikiki, he begins to accumulate money for the first time in his life, and as an added bonus, stumbles into many strange and varied romantic entanglements. While his real desire is to balance his meditation and yoga practice with the overwhelming allure of Waikiki, he finds it almost impossible to live up to his own lofty ideals.

THE FINGERNAIL KING is the humorous and sometimes poignant story of a young man’s indulgence, occasional overindulgence, and eventual redemption.

The Fingernail King is a must read before YOUR next Hawaiian vacation!