Book Review: Love and Roses

Title: Love and Roses

Author: Sally Bayless

Quote: "Moving to Abundance, taking a job in his uncle's law firm, adopting this dog...His plan to rebuild his life was a good one."

That's Nate, one of the main characters in this two-couple romance. When Nate moves to the town of Abundance, Missouri, he falls in love with Abby at the same time his cousin Frankie is falling in love with Cooper. Both couples are involved n the town's decision to maintain an old, small park or sell it to help pay for a big, new one. Abby, a widow, and Frankie, a divorcee, have little girls about the same age. Plot twists test each man's stepfather skills.

This series started out in the 1980s, but a touch of contemporary reality appears when Nate almost loses a chance to make an impressive computer presentation because his computer has been hijacked by the endless, useless "updates." Microsoft had not become the bully that shoves computer owners off our very own grown-up equivalents of tricycles, just because it can, in the 1980s. Microsoft really became that playground bully with Windows 10. We need a law about this. The FCC should monitor computers and shut down any company that sabotages any computer owner's productivity with an "update' until the company can produce a signed certificate of receipt of a cash payment from a company employee. 

Apart from that historical note, I have some qualms about allowing stepfathers to move in with little girls, but these characters are serious Christians who pray and meditate on Bible verses, so they probably are more likely at least not to abuse or molest their stepchildren. Still, stepchildren always seem to feel that there was something deeply icky about living with an adult of the opposite sex, even if the step-parent's physical behavior is blameless. Regular readers know that I became a penniless widow rather than remarry right away and live with a teenaged stepson, so they know how strongly I feel about this. Some people think stepchildren can survive the ickiness. I suppose some do. 

Anyway, the scene where Nate, in extreme stress, really craves "just one more" pill but know that not popping one is crucial to "rebuilding his life" is worth a little anachronism and a little controversial psychology. If you like wholesome Christian romantic comedies, you'll like this book.