Com base nas informações mínimas fornecidas, é difícil ter certeza. Mas eu iria com "Singer from the Sea" por Sherri S. Tepper.
O texto no verso diz
A good and proper aristocrat on the isolated, seemingly backward
planet of Haven, Genevieve has been carefully instructed in the
Covenants -- the ancient, inflexible laws governing the women of her
class. She knows what is expected of her: marriage in her mid-twenties
to a groom of her father's choosing, childbirth at age thirty. And
then soon afterwards -- as has been the lot of so many noblewomen
before her -- perhaps death.
But there is another Genevieve within who
longs to heed the call of the sea -- though she has never once seen
the vast waters that cover most of her homeworld's surface. For an
unheard voice is crying out to her across the centuries, drawing her
ever-closer to a terrible truth hidden beneath a smoke screen of
rules, tradition, and propriety. And it is Genevieve who must fulfill
a forgotten destiny -- something inborn passed for untold generations
from daughter to daughter -- or she and the entire civilization of
Haven will be swept away on a cosmic wave of oblivion.
Assim, o livro está claramente centrado em torno de uma heroína, e o mar é parte integrante do conto.
Foi publicado em 1999, cumprindo assim a escala de tempo correta.
Ele não aparece na lista que Micah postou, mas realmente tem uma citação de Ursula K. Le Guin no topo das costas que diz
"Sheri S. Tepper takes the mental risks that are the lifeblood of Science Fiction and all imaginative narrative."
(Claro que esta sinopse é realmente sobre Tepper em geral, não este livro em particular. Six Moon Dance que foi publicado ao mesmo tempo, e está na lista tem a mesma citação sobre ele.)