Sunrise

This sequel to Jarrett's Moonlight is a tale of romance in spartan 18th-century Nantucket, Mass. Daniel Fairbourne is a blacksmith whose estranged wife died in a shipwreck five years before. Haunted by grief and guilt, he atones by walking Nantucket's beaches to rescue any survivors cast ashore. When he discovers bedraggled Juliette LaCroix one September evening, his capacity to love is reborn. The trauma of shipwreck has afflicted Juliette with amnesia, which disappears only gradually as Daniel nurses her back to health in his isolated cottage. The emerging details of her past seem to spell doom for the couple's budding passion; feisty Juliette is a stylish Boston shop owner, while gruff Daniel has forsworn the wealthy life his family enjoyed for the island's honest, undeveloped simplicity. The romance lacks both the tension of any true conflict and the liveliness of strong secondary characters or subplots, leaving the story somewhat flat. Still, Jarrett evokes the era with accuracy and draws her protagonists vividly and with charm. (Jan.)