Swallow Island

Earth has landed in the galactic ICU after a long and tortured illness, and desperate remedies, long withheld, may be too late to save the patient. Earlier treatments-- recycling cans, cloth shopping bags, and gradually increasing mpg ratings-- have been recognized as foolishly ineffective, akin to bailing water on the Titanic with teacups and spoons. Welcome to 2074. Welcome to the age of the Wellington Doctrine.

Abe Cronus wants no part of radical governmental rules and restraints, and he has an out: Swallow Island. Raising a family on a six-acre speck of land in the Pacific affords many freedoms to Abe, Rhea, and their growing family, but it brings as well relationship problems out of reach of a marriage counselor or divorce lawyer. They’re stuck between their rock and a hard place.

Nudged along by harsh events and her mutinous daughters, Rhea commandeers the Freedom, marooning her husband to give her kids a life on the continent. The stain on her conscience, however, is as dark as her castaway husband’s rage, and neither washes away with time. When Cronus miraculously resurfaces a decade later, alive but facing a murder charge, it awakens Rhea’s great shame and sends her on a quest for his grace. They meet, separated by the bars of Tartarus Prison, and by so much more.

But who, exactly, needs forgiveness? Where was the first wrong, and the last, or the most awful? This story, borrowing heavily from the Greek myth, probes timeless questions and leaves the reader rummaging for answers. It is a story of hope within despair, and of revival from decay.