Recommendation for Some Polynesian Fantasy and Science Fiction

After entering law school I became a lackluster reader. This is a thing that happens that lots of law students joke about, but unlike the stereotype I didn't regain my readerly mojo by second year--possibly because I read a lot online, I don't know, but I haven't gotten back into novels until fairly recently.

I haven't gotten excited about books until a couple weeks ago when I picked up Cold Magic but the Spiritwalker books are going to require a whole 'nother post to contain my feelings (which are: my God why doesn't someone else read them so I have someone to talk to!?)

I didn't know what else to read, and after a crummy writing day I tore my apartment apart looking for a book I was in the middle of that I put down over a year ago--the third book in Carol Severance's trilogy. I flew through the rest of it with toe-curling delight, partly for its Polynesian mythology but in large part because I. Fucking. Love. The main pairing and Severance's matter-of-fact approach to them. The stoic and hardassed warrior woman and the impish and gentle-hearted boytoy. While the Spiritwalker books reinvented a romantic trope I hate and made me love it, the Island Warrior books just handed off a trope I love and said "oh, that old thing? No big."

These books include a lot of things people want more of but I never see them recced. In fact, almost no one knows who Carol Severance is--and I wouldn't, either, if I hadn't picked up Reefsong in a secondhand bookstore in DC, plucking it off the shelf thanks to its awesome cover. I had to have been about 10 or 12 when I read it, this book was foundational to me. Polynesian science fiction! It was my first introduction to anthropology, too (Severance worked as an anthropologist in Micronesia). So imagine my delight when I walked into my local secondhand bookstore over a decade later and found an entire trilogy by the same author--with the original covers, even.

Imagine my disappointment when I realized this means I'd read all of Severance's books.

Unlike Reefsong, The Island Warriors trilogy is straight up fantasy set on an archipelago where most of the action happens on the open water via canoe. The books are like the original fairy tales you see so often in fantasy (except they're based on another culture's mythic tropes), so the characters don't spend long considering some of the weird things that happen because no one does in fairy tales--which makes explaining some plot points a lot stranger than they are in the book, like the time I tried to tell a friend about an event involving flying dolphins.

Anyway some things that should pique anybody's interest:
* The books are about a badass warrior woman who casually talks to sharks

* Like she is so badass everybody knows her because she's a famous warrior and she solves most problems by being stoic at them

* Seriously a hero with PTSD long before that was the cool thing to do (these books are from the early 90s)

* I mean the world doesn't feel gritty and grimdark but wow everyone's traumatized and dysfunctional but it isn't really talked over much because that's just the way things are and people got lives to live

* Asexual sorceress sidekick

* Seriously when people ask for books with asexual characters I always want to shout these out because guh, Tarawe, I know that feel

* I said sorceress that means you've got books about two awesome women awesoming it up

* Majorly adorable love interest who is casually introduced like it's no big deal, totally playing on my "established romantic couple" wants because you just don't get to see enough couples after they hook up

* Did I mention adorable shapeshifter love interest, because that always gets my attention

* Heroic and romantic prostitute couple who are BFFs with said warrior woman and lord they are charming and I had the hardest time remembering which is the man and which is the woman since they're often talked about as a single unit and have identical flirtatious patter

* Fuckloads of badass women all over the place

* Magic systems I have never seen before and totally different cultural values that spring up due to said system, like the demon drummers who use drums of human skin to control the world (and people) around them, weather witchery, and a lot of magic is based on asking reef animals for the daily gossip

* Dude do I need to bring up the flying dolphins again

* Because they're dolphins that fly I mean really