<p>This short story collection offers the reader a rich canvas and many and varied slices of different lives. A British female writer of fiction, Stephanie Shields&rsquo; eye focuses on the human condition. The stories touch on love and romance, childhood and growing up, aging and death. Even the supernatural makes its fleeting appearances.</p><p>The countryside, the landscape and seascape are tangible and finely observed. Birds are important and carry a metaphoric significance, especially the swan, the emblem of this collection.</p><p>The scope of the writing is cinematic. The author herself has a range that spans delicacy, derision, wry wisdom, irony and a down to earth and salty appreciation of the physical, faintly reminiscent of Jane Austen, but firmly rooted in present times. There are laugh out loud moments, pathos and, occasionally, bathos, in these pacey stories, much to reflect on, and times to weep.</p>