Strong to Save [The Amazons #1]

The Queer "Left Behind"--Here's what Sensual Romance says about the lnovels of Susanna Valent: "Though there is action and lots of violence--the characters are all three dimensional and sympathetic. There are no heterosexual sexual encounters in [her] books." And now Susanna Valent's talent and daring take her to a whole new level in <I>The Amazons Quartet</I>, a four-volume saga of Sapphic passion and resistance in the face a new male-dominated future tyranny. In Book 1, <I>Strong to Save</I>, it's 2006 and the U.S. is being turned upside down by a government taken over by the extreme right wing elements of the Republican Party, an Islamic coalition, and a fundamentalist church. The most conservative, misogynist elements of society join to crush women and liberals, especially feminists, lesbians, transgenders, and gay men. The right-wing Congress passes all kinds of repressive, xenophobic, sexist and homophobic laws. The four freedoms of the Bill of Rights cease to exist for the disadvantaged portions of the population. These new laws are depriving women of their social, political, financial, personal rights--even the right to control their own bodies and fates as they are increasingly confined to the domestic realm and heterosexual husbands gain complete legal power over their wives. Women who dare to appear alone in public are being increasingly physically threatened by women-loathing men of every description. Along with every other woman in the country, charismatic, dynamic Coast Guard Captain Kris Nordstrom is under siege to adopt the values and behavior of fundamentalist religious fanatics, and as a lesbian, she is more threatened than most. Although she was already in thecloset as a military officer, she is given the heart-breaking choice of being fired or resigning from active duty simply because she is a woman. After leaving the Coast Guard, Kris vacations with her teenaged nieces, Danielle and Carole, and finds her heart breaking even further at the thought of what their futures will be like if they have to grow up in the new America.