title: Waking Up in Eden: In Pursuit of an Impassioned Life on an Imperiled Island
author:  Lucinda Fleeson 
description: An admitted news junkie, journalist Fleeson imagined she would die in the <i>Philadelphia Inquirer's</i> newsroom with a half-written story in her computer. But as the newspaper business began its cataclysmic shift in the late 1990s, she started to feel stymied and leapt at a fund-raising job with Hawaii's National Tropical Botanical Garden. Arriving on the island of Kauai, she discovered that Hawaii's native plants were becoming extinct at an alarming rate, with two-thirds in danger of disappearing by the end of the current century. Fleeson delves into conservation effortsthe history of the garden's benefactors, two gay men with a passion for exotic plants and even more salacious parties during the years after WWII. She spotlights a full-time bartender who attempts to cultivate rare plants with basic greenhouse equipment. Finally, she shadows Kauai's own Orchid Thief: the Robin Hood of Hawaii known for picking endangered plants in national forests and turning them into prized specimens on his own preserve. An artful and lively tale of flora and fauna illustrates their complexities and serves as a reminder of the need to nurture both. <i>(July)</i> <br />Copyright  Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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  **PAGAN HEART**
  
  
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  ## **Rebecca Caine**
  
  
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  Kalinda was Christie Irvine's dream come true - almost! She'd inherited her
  uncle's Pacific Island home and business - but she'd inherited problems as
  well. She could learn about shells and coral and island living - but what
  could she do about Matt Denham?
  
  
  
  
  
  The only other inhabitant of the island, he'd made it clear that he could do
  without her company. 'Listen, Christie,' he warned, 'You're not in love with
  me. You're in love with love; with the idea of living here, playing at
  primitive house. Don't break your heart over it, Christie. There's no future
  in it.'
  
  
  
  
  
  For Christie, the warning came much, much too late!
  
  
  
  
  
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  **CHAPTER I**
  
  
  THE clamour of farewells was fading and the waving figures along the dockside
  diminishing to doll-sized silhouettes under the gaunt grey skyline of the
  port. The vast bulk of the _Vulcania_ was slipping away at last; to some just
  