Better to ask for forgiveness than seek permission.

That’s a mantra running through Karen Comer’s verisimilitude verse novel, GRACE NOTES.

Grace, an aspiring violinist, with virtuoso lineage from her paternal grandmother, has parents who have confused the word ‘possibilities’ with absolutely not.

Crux, whose street art acumen is supported by his parents with the proviso that he doesn’t paint publicly till he has finished school, is conflicted in the light of peer praise.

GRACE NOTES charts their journeys of civil parental disobedience and like minded connection in the age of Corona virus set in the lock down town of Melbourne.

GRACE NOTES is a Romeo & Juliet tale of the modern era, focusing on two households, both alike in dignity, in Covid affected Melbourne, where youthful mutiny is fermenting, young hearts inflamed with art, with parental and pandemic restrictions fuelling generational conflict.

No fifty shades of grey here, rather fifty two grades of blue, the colour of comfort, of limitless sky, but also synonymous with sadness and a genre of song.

Comer’s blank verse is full of vibrant colour, descriptions conveyed by both her characters, obviously through Crux, the painter, but also through the musician, Grace, who, as with many of her cohort, sees or feels colour in the music, the phenomenon known as synesthesia.

These two star crossed lovers, admirers of each others work, form a sympathetic synthesis of music and art through the conduit of Comer’s poetry.

There’s a palpable flexibility of tone, an artful musicality, often without rhyme but never without reason.

An advocacy of harmony pervades GRACE NOTES, a compelling rallying cry for the pursuit of passion, of perseverance in the face of adversity, and the essential work of artists.

Two teenagers mindful of filial obligation and responsibility, yet daring to follow their creative impulse, Grace and Crux could well become classic cult characters.

GRACE NOTES by Karen Comer is published by Lothian.