Lyric

Lyric Chandler is living off of her severance pay in Bronxville Village, unsure of what direction to take in her career. Days are spent watching neighbors in the upscale community and walking her dog, Clown, until she decides to apply for a job at the local school as an after-school aide.  Once she settles in, she finds her passion championing the children and petitioning for a playground for the school.

Dawes Van Dusen is a landscape architect busy working on a project for Bronxville's Village Conservancy redesigning an unattractive traffic island into a people friendly community space. His career is well underway and he doesn't mind bouncing from location to location until he meets Lyric.  He bids on a project to extend his time in Bronxville with Lyric, not knowing that his bid is on the property for her playground.

Gaston's writing style reveals a credibility to the location near New York. Although the reader meets the dog by name before he/she meets the main character, the possible awkward introduction flows smoothly into the story with a unique and humorous look at dog ownership. The setting is well drawn without an info dump. Ms. Gaston's piece contains a few faux pas that will yank the exacting reader from the page  (most, easily fixed with tighter editing.) The story conflict doesn't come to the page until well beyond the midway point of the novel and a time or two the dialogue or action of a scene feels unbelievable. In spite of its shortcomings, however, this is a fun and enjoyable read.

Shaunna Gonzales