Pirates & Promises

Caldwell's ( Scandal's Darling ) unsatisfying offering launches Jove's Tea Rose Romance series (``our favorite writers . . . share their most romantic dreams of England''). It's an especially awkward choice as the story is set almost entirely on a boat leaving England and in Williamsburg, Va. Sabrina Smythe (unfortunately known as ``Bree'') is beautiful, rich and is saving herself for a childhood sweetheart named Saint Clair. Faced with the proposition of marrying Saint Clair's evil half-brother she allows herself to be abducted by a handsome Robin Hood of a highwayman whom she calls ``pirate''--and is in fact her young friend grown to an unrecognizable sinewy manhood. It's an unconvincing start which unfolds into a rather tedious disquisition on the mistaken identity premise. Bree is shrill, unstable and way too immature, even for 17. If Caldwell's plot and characters need work, her dialogue is spunky--lines meant to sting, do; those meant to be funny, are. (Mar.)