Having begun this journey with the prequel, A Place Called Harmony, I
was surprised to discover that book one jumps nearly 2 centuries to
the year 2006, close to present day. The population has jumped from
14 to 14,000. Lighting has progressed from lanterns and candles to
traffic lights and compact fluorescents.
I hung in there and the book grew on me. No town can prosper if its
residents don't procreate so the book follows three romances. First
young Noah McAdam, tall and lanky, is confident that once his
complexion clears and he gets some muscle on his bones he'll be a
ladies' man. He courts Reagan Truman who lives with her ancient dour
Uncle Jeremiah. Noah's Sister, the redoubtable Alexandra, the town
Sheriff is courted by Hank Matheson, the town Fire Chief – when
they aren't fighting. And finally Ty Wright, the town's
forty-something Undertaker has an E-mail Romance with a woman in
another State he met on one of his collection runs.
The town's centre is not the courthouse, but the local coffeeshop,
the Blue Moon. The Trumans, Mathesons, and McNabbs represent the
three founding families we met in the prequel. Amarillo and Palo Duro
Canyon on the Texas Panhandle are real places, Harmony is fiction.
The fear of Grass Fires on this flat land prairie is very real.
No comments:
Post a Comment