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A fantasy with an unusual South Seas flavor - Carol Severance is a resident of Hawaii, and has done anthropolgical 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.

It's a Del Rey Discovery book - I've really found all the books I've read from that imprint to be quite good.

SF novel set in Islands of the Pacific. Interesting.