The Spark and Fire of It Paperback / softback

Love is a good thing-so true in The Spark and Fire of It, this classic one-act romance: two young people smitten to the point of delirium and a gruff father who will have none of it.

The father sees his daughter's suitor only as a penniless lad with nothing to offer.

But the young woman's mother sees her own husband in the young man, remembering a time when he, too, was an empty-handed suitor.

Add internal complications: the young women questions her own judgment, and the young man is tempted by a hooligan called Rascal.

Then there is Old Gentleman, who, like a befuddled Socrates, understands this thing called love. The romance contains poems that begin with a line of Shakespeare that Soto artfully extends into his own original poetry.

The dialogue is written in the vernacular of Elizabethan times-though occasionally it falls into contemporary street slang.

The code switching reminds readers that love is a human experience that makes the young go crazy no matter the century!