Swans in Winter

India Lake loves the wild and she will do anything to protect it—including taking off her clothes. India Lake is in the middle of a full blown mid-life crisis. Her love life is stalled, to say the least. And her boss forces her to take a two-month vacation after she loses her temper with a library patron at work. A few days later, while observing the swans who have migrated from Alaska to a pond near her home, India meets photographer extraordinaire Benjamin Swan. India and Benjamin are immediately attracted to one another. India wonders if he might be what her friend Rhonda calls a “sole mate,” someone India can walk through life with. But the mysterious photographer and nature lover has many secrets. When the swans and Turtle Pond are threatened by pesticides and a shadowy lumber company, India and her friends from POOL (Pissed Off Old Ladies) decide to pose in the buff for a lunar calendar they can sell to raise enough money to hire an environmental lawyer to protect the land and the swans. As India talks to each woman and Benjamin takes their photographs, India comes to realize her place in this community of Swan Maidens. Once Benjamin’s secrets are revealed, can she forgive her Swan Knight? And can she save the wild and learn who her true “sole” mate is? Kim Antieau has written many novels, short stories, poems, and essays. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, both in print and online, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s SF, The Clinton Street Quarterly, The Journal of Mythic Arts, EarthFirst!, Alternet, Sage Woman, and Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. She was the founder, editor, and publisher of Daughters of Nyx: A Magazine of Goddess Stories, Mythmaking, and Fairy Tales. Her work has twice been short-listed for the James Tiptree Award and has appeared in many best-of-the-year anthologies. Critics have admired her “literary fearlessness” and her vivid language and imagination. Her first novel The Jigsaw Woman is a modern classic of feminist literature. She is also the author of a science fiction novel, The Gaia Websters and a contemporary tale set in the desert Southwest, Church of the Old Mermaids. Her other novels include Her Frozen Wild, The Fish Wife, and Coyote Cowgirl. Broken Moon, a novel for young adults, was a selection of the Junior Library Guild. She has also written other YA novels, including Deathmark, The Blue Tail, Ruby’s Imagine, and Mercy, Unbound. Kim lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, writer Mario Milosevic. Learn more about Kim and her writing at www.kimantieau.com. Find her books at your favorite ebook store.