******MILLION-COPY BESTSELLER, NEWLY EDITED AND BACK IN PRINT*****

ONE LONELY ISLAND, ONE TIDAL WAVE, NINE SURVIVORS . . .

A tsunami is one of the last things Dr. Andrew Held expects while entertaining guests on Phoenix Island, the tiny, isolated outpost of Washington State he has made his private home. But when a French nuclear bomb test in the South Pacific goes awry, the ensuing tidal wave destroys his island estate and severs all ties to the mainland.

The survivors are nine: Andrew Held himself, the brilliant Hungarian-born nuclear physicist who helped create the bombs he now campaigns against. Donald Campbell, steward to Dr. Held but secretly a fugitive from justice, with hungers he can barely contain. Diana Lindgren, the lovely yet emotionally damaged young girl hired to help with the guests, and Rolf Morgan, her Native American boyfriend, impelled by love to follow her to Phoenix in his fishing boat.

There's Carlo Minatti, a Hawaiian musician with a winning manner and easygoing style. The sculptor Warren Brock, urbane, hedonistic, openly gay, with a barbed wit that takes no prisoners. Blake and Norma Mansfield, a New York middle-class couple, likeable to everyone but each other. And Felicia Stowe Held -- Andrew's estranged wife -- a ravishing socialite whom he pushed away in a moment always regretted and who has now come seeking divorce.

Nine individuals with little in common and histories setting them far apart, yet each with unique, unexpected strengths, virtues, and talents. As hopes of quick rescue dim, their only chance of survival is to bridge their differences, transcend their conflicts, and learn to live in harmony with each other -- and in some cases, with themselves.

Part techno-thriller, part romance, part wilderness survival story, part utopian novel, Charlotte Paul's "Phoenix Island" sold over a million copies as a mass-market paperback in the late 1970s and 1980s. Now it is reborn in a newly-edited 35th Anniversary Edition.

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Charlotte Paul (1916-1989) led a life marked by the pursuit of numerous careers -- news editor, wife, back-to-the-lander, freelance writer, mother, novelist, rural newspaper proprietor, memoirist, parole board official -- and usually several of these at once. Living mostly in the U.S. Pacific Northwest, with a multi-year stint in Washington, D.C., she spent her final two decades on Lopez Island, one of Washington State's enchanting San Juan Islands. On these she modeled chief locales of what became her most popular novel, "Phoenix Island."

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SAMPLE

Felicia was the only one who hadn't spoken. When she saw it was her turn, her hand flew to the little leather pouch hanging on a ribbon around her neck.

Andrew had never squandered his powers of observation on details of feminine adornment. For him, it had always been enough to register the total effect. But suddenly he knew what that leather pouch contained -- the objects so precious to his wife that, at the risk of being overtaken by a tidal wave, she had run back to the house to get them.

What an insane sense of values! he thought. But he instantly corrected himself. To Felicia, who had been unwilling or unable to understand the peril of tsunami, going back to save a sackful of precious gems was perfectly consistent with a sense of the practical.

Donald said belligerently, "Well, go on, Mrs. Held. What's in the leather bag? The rest of us didn't hold nothing back." With his three-blade jackknife displayed on one big, rough palm, he seemed to be challenging Felicia to match his prize.

Andrew said quickly, "It's not important. This was all voluntary, Donald. She doesn't have to show -- "

"She don't, don't she!" interrupted Donald with an angry roar. "How come she don't? Carlo here offered to give up his jock strap for a slingshot."

"Mrs. Held has a right to privacy."

"Huh! When she goes into the woods to piss, she does. But not when we're trying to put all our useful stuff together -- things we need so we can get along on this island. That means things all of us need."

Felicia's haughty resistance dissolved in an instant, her face breaking into a smile. Slowly at first, then with more and more abandon, she gave herself up to bursts of laughter.

"Here, do have a look!" she gasped when she could catch her breath. She pulled the ribbon over her head, opened the pouch, and shook the contents into her lap.

In silence, eight people stared at a tangled mound of necklaces, bracelets, earrings, and brooches. Diamonds and emeralds winked in the morning sunshine. A string of pearls glistened wetly. A topaz ring shone like a comet.

"There, you see? I do have something to contribute to the general good. Whenever we are hungry or thirsty, we'll just rub one of these little magic stones!"

"Oh, for Chrissakes." Donald's hungry eyes moved from Felicia's lap to his own open palm. Contemplating the jackknife, he began to smile.

"Goddamn. It's funny, at that, all right. Goddamn, it sure is enough to make you laugh. If we were in the city, that stuff of hers would be worth fifty thousand dollars, and you couldn't get three bucks for my knife. But here, the way things are . . ." He chuckled. "Want to trade, Mrs. Held?"

"Thank you, Mr. Campbell. At the moment, that gadget of yours may be worth more than my jewelry, but I'm going back to the city. You can play millionaire for a day, but I have no use for your knife."

Donald looked at her boldly. "I wonder. Don't that depend on how long we're stuck here?"