Cord and Nevada are two of the most unlikely lovers on the planet, but Thomas not only makes their paths to love believable but sympathetic. Both desperately need someone to love and to love them, but both are so resilient and strong-willed that they need someone with a pickax and dynamite to break through the walls they've erected around them.
In addition to their tumultuous journey to love, Thomas pits the strange, oddly satisfying liaison between a mousy postal worker and a dying man of the world. Again, these are unlikely lovers who manage to find a time out of time moment for love. Theirs, unlike the love of Cord and Nevada, isn't physical, which is a bit jarring in this age of sex scenes on every page.
And finally, there is the burgeoning love of the busy-body rooming house owner and the dying man's manservant. Talk about unlikely lovers! But Thomas makes the reader see that there is a definite possibility that these two might make a match of it also.
Altogether, the interweaving of these stories makes for a deep and satisfying romance novel, the kind of book that stays with readers for days, weeks, and months after the last page is read.
