A wonderful tale, rich in local imagery, this acclaimed novel follows the lives and loves of seven generations of Hawaiian women, from the first encounter of a runaway Tahitian princess with a one-eyed Yankee sailor marooned on the island, through struggles with statehood and modernization. The first sentence gives away the tone of the book: "Sailors, lepers, opium, spies -- with such a family history how could we be anything but sluts?" It's a riveting social history in the form of fiction.  (HWI03, $16.00)