Sunday, October 20, 2024

Book Review for 10.20.24: Love and Harmony

Title: Love and Harmony

Author: Sally Bayless

Quote: "[I]t was time for Tony, his half-brother, to get back on track. His new job as interim principal at Tony's school meant big challenges."

So on his first day in his new job, Interim Principal Seth puts the grandson of the school superintendent on detention. The superintendent, fortunately for him, agrees that that's appropriate, but Seth's difficult decisions are only beginning.

He and Becky, the music teacher, were classmates when they were too young even to kiss but not too young to have thought about it. As adults their outward appearances have improved so much they almost didn't recognize each other. There is still a mutual attraction. But a scheduling conflict between Tony's ball game, Becky's choir concert, and another school's need for major renovations, gives them reasons for lovers' quarrels through most of the book. 

How interesting is it when fictional characters spend pages working out a compromise that was probably staring them in the face from the beginning, even if the book does not supply, say, the map of their town that would have made the compromise obvious to readers? It's worth reading, anyway. In real life as in fiction, people often feel that what's good for themselves and what's good for other people are opposite when a satisfactory compromise might even be better for both sides than either side's original plan. Stupidity is a choice; when people lock into thinking "I want to do it my way! If anyone else has another idea, I want to make a fight and win that fight!", they can display astonishing stupidity. The social value of romance novels is that, when they're well written, they can illuminate how easily humans fall into this kind of stupid thinking and how they can get back to clearer thinking. 

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