A fantasy with an unusual South Seas flavor - Carol Severance is a resident of Hawaii, and has done anthropological work in Micronesia - the island atmosphere she knows comes through as authentic and colorful.

The plot itself is more standard - warrior woman must defeat evil sorceress and her evil tribal followers, with the help of an attractive shapeshifter and some other powerful allies.
But the exotic atmosphere really did it for me - I enjoyed it a lot.

I was initially introduced to this author by this being published as a 'Del Rey Discovery' book - I've really found nearly all the books I've read from that imprint to be quite good. Unfortunately, that line introducing stand-out works by new SF authors is no longer extant.

However, this book has now been picked up by Open Road Media, thanks to whom I got an ebook copy of the novel. I see that the publisher has also released Severance's other titles, including the long out-of-print sequels to this one: 'Storm Caller' and 'Sorcerous Sea.' I'll have to pick those up and finally find out what happens next!

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