Exoticism and romance is a funny thing isn’t it?  It’s so dependent on place and perspective.  Hawaii, is, for many people, the very definition of an exotic, romantic destination, and everything from and about Hawaii is coloured in that rosy glow. Growing up in Hawaii, and growing up on Bond, Boston, Burnett,  Lewis, and Wynne Jones,  and later Stevenson & Austen (and even later, Rowling), England and Scotland were my idea of exotic, romantic locations (sorry Ireland & Wales, somehow you got shafted in the romance stakes when it came to my childhood literature).  Mackintoshes and golashes sounded thrilling, and Guy Fawkes was fascinating.  I wanted to do all the weird British things I read about, and all the weirdly British  things that my family did anyway (tea, baked puddings, but sadly, not Christmas Crackers, which my mother had as a child, but which we could never figure out how to import into Hawaii (they won’t ship them because of the firecracker component)) were that much better. Perspective is everything though.  I met some lovely …