Sandy and Wayne

It's so rare to find fiction about everyday work, aside from office satires and the usual glamorously improbable professions, that opening up a novella that concerns the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department, and specifically the contract for Highway Job AR 4005, feels like a thrilling revelation. It turns out to be a romance too (Sandy is a highway construction inspector and Wayne is a contractor's foreman), but there remains a romance in the work as well, and the fact that Sandy and Wayne are so good at their jobs makes them compelling characters with something truly at stake when they decide whether to stick together. It's a fresh and thoughtful tale.