"In his provocative and striking way, James writes of the disturbing transition from adolescence to adulthood, a passage no less brutal or monumental for having been experienced on a lush tropical island in the Caribbean. In fact, Secrets shows us how deceptive, and how much more dangerous, this splendid paradise - overflowing with brilliantly colored flowers and ripe, detectable fruit - can be for a young girl coming of age."--BOOK JACKET. "The heroine of Secrets, Uxann, is blessed among her friends: Her father is an overseer, comparatively well off by island standards, and she a gifted student. She is reluctant to recognize the signs that this idyllic childhood is at an end - her own physical maturity, her friends' trysts in secret places, and terrifying omens, including the gabilan, a raptor with blazing eyes, which foretells evil. When the call to consciousness finally comes, the truth is revealed as so powerful that it disrupts Uxann's life forever, destroying all that she has taken for granted."--BOOK JACKET.