Coinage of Commitment

by: Rob Costelloe

Published by: Saga Books

Reviewed by Michele E. Davis

Wayne Cavanaugh, a sophomore student at Drexel, becomes mesmerized by Nancy Hammond, a junior at Penn State, when she sits alone at a bar counter. Hammond’s a privileged and snobby girl. She can spot Drexel kids on sight, because “they have that look,” shabby clothes along with less refined manners. Nonetheless, Hammond’s intrigued and a romance begins in front of the backdrop of the tumultuous 1960s and everything that goes along with that decade.

Hammond’s prior relationship before Cavanaugh goes up in smoke and she, “…lost faith that her theories of Aesthetic Love would conquer the world and line her life’s pathway with bright expectations.” But she plows forward, attempting to make her life whole again and figuring out what the word love really means to her.

Cavanaugh and Hammond’s romance takes many twists and turns and even though they’re from different sides of the tracks and have to negotiate the differences in their upbringing (financial, religion, different colleges with similar agendas, the Greek system, and other issues), the love they have for one another knows no bounds.

Costelloe brings the reader back to a simpler time, where college boys still went to their high school football games to show support, as well as campus life and the hurdles it takes to jump through them. Descriptions are so real that you feel like you’re living Hammond and Cavanaugh’s lives.
This book is exceptionally well written for small press published book, but it has flow problems. He spent a lot of time on preliminaries but not enough detail later on to make me really understand the higher love that the characters experienced. A good editing could have eliminated some of those issues for me.

Armchair Interviews says: A quick read about falling in love and romanticism.

Author’s Web site: http://www.RCostelloe.com