Got this book for some light Hawai'i vacation reading, not quite realizing that duh it's going to be a heartbreaking leprosy story. Oops. Also a soaring story of the human spirit and the power of love to overcome and blah blah blah.. still, it's awfully grim, but fair enough.

What I like best about this book is how well historically grounded it feels, the author clearly did a lot of research. Very readable and sympathetic and lots of great female characters. The other thing is he manages to tell a sweeping story of most of Hawaiian history through the eyes of this one woman living in exile, that's a neat trick. And goes some way to erasing Michener's dominance of that Hawaiian subgenre.