SEA GIRT, NJ – Is Emma Spreckels the mysterious Sandwich Island girl, the “Gay Queen of the Waves,” who put on a surfing expedition in Asbury Park in 1888, possibly the first of its kind on the East Coast?

After four years of research, author Vincent Dicks of Sea Girt believes he found the likely surfer, and she is the subject of his new novel, “Forsaken Kings: Emma Spreckels The Surfer of Asbury Park.”