Swept Away

Recently widowed and orphaned, Eve Marie Sedgwick is marooned on a lush Caribbean island with Adam Winthrop, owner of the shipwrecked vessel they'd been sailing from England to America in 1688. Her first-person, stilted narration moves at a timid pace. Tetel ( Tangled Dreams ) treats readers to an exotic paradise peopled by beautiful, friendly inhabitants with rich customs, but fails to dish up much action. Eve Marie and Adam adopt Arawak Indian language and mores, and propriety soon loses its value for this very proper, intelligent and independent Englishwoman. After much teasing and tussling, she and Adam give in to their desires, but a return to civilization brings unpleasant revelations about both her lover and, later, her father. The heroine's newfound wisdom effects the requisite happy ending, and if the author has come up with nothing new here, she's at least provided an appealingly spunky protagonist. (Dec.)