While vacationing on the island of Hawaii, twelve-year-old Ian McKinley purchases a souvenir paperweight made of volvanic rock. When he meets Kalea Coe, the daughter of a local hotel manager, she tells him the strange tale of Pele, the mysterious volcano goddess. From then on, back luck seems to follow Ian and his family like a shadow.

First, Ian pinches his finger; then his father scrapes his hand on a rock in a koi pond. His new stepmother loses an earring. Ian finds out that Kalea's great-grandmother fears Pele--and for good reason: Kalea's father, the hotel manager, accidentally unleashed Pele's wrath on his grandmother when he stole Pele's lava rocks to make his luau pit.

Hoping that an offering will end the back luck, Ian and Kalea work out a daring plan to return Pele's rocks to the volcano. Will they be able to appease the goddess of fire before she consumes them in a fiery lava flow?