Across the Bridge

by Morag Joss

When a bridge collapses in the Highlands of Scotland, dozens of people vanish into the river below. A car hired by a woman tourist was filmed pulling onto the bridge moments before it fell. Now numbered among the missing, the woman seizes her chance to start her life over. But her new path takes her no farther than a wooden cabin on the riverbank, where she seeks rebirth and freedom from her old self. There she lives with Silva, an illegal immigrant whose husband and daughter have not been seen since the day of the bridge’s collapse. The women are befriended by the boatman Ron, and together they create a fragile sanctuary. Lost souls all, they keep secrets from each other, yet connect in ways none of them expects, as they strive to reconcile their past histories with the present and shape for themselves an elusive, longed-for future. A haunting story of identity and reinvention, loss and reparation, Across the Bridge is a stunning new novel from award-winning author Morag Joss.

Genres: Fiction

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 3, 2012

About the author

She is the author of six novels, including the Sara Selkirk series, and the Silver Dagger winning Half Broken Things. She began writing in 1996 after a short story of hers was runner-up in a national competition sponsored by Good Housekeeping magazine. A visit to the Roman Baths with crime writer P.D. James germinated the plot of her first novel, Funeral Music, the first in the Sara Selkirk series, which gained a Dilys Award nomination for the year's best mystery published in the USA.

Series:
* Sarah Selkirk Mystery

Awards:
Crime Writers' Association Silver Dagger
◊ 2003: Half-Broken Things

Reviews

[Sandi Dickenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! It has been a while since the characters in a book captured my attention so thoroughly.

The opening chapters were not easy for me to understand but I was intensely drawn in and could not stop reading. The book is written in the voices of 3 people and at first it was difficult to follow how the separate stories were related.

I was about 1/3 in when the relationship between 2 of the characters suddenly made sense so I went back to the first chapter to re-establish the third character connection.

The author takes 3 very different people, two with a past that they want to leave behind. A sudden tragedy provides an opportunity for them to create themselves as someone with a second chance at life. The third person's character provides meaning to the storyline.

The ending is not apparent. The author could have ended the story in various ways, the talent lies in how she keeps you wondering if these 3 people will pull together to help each other or if they will they cause each other pain and suffering.

It's a story that really makes you realize that humans have the power to harm and to befriend and the reason they are motivated to help or harm lies in truths and misunderstandings. A person's attempts to protect another might backfire with very serious consequences.

Highly recommend if human behavior interests you.

[Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was a missed opportunity. An author spun a tale about a woman who is assumed to be dead from a disaster on a bridge. Most of the novel lacked suspense, ambiguity and any sense of real reinvention. Instead the main character retreats and the plot becomes mundane and her husband is almost forgotten leading to a great anti-climax early on. Despite all this it was readable, I think the very short chapters helped. I wondered a number of times reading this book, whether the author thought that excitement meant loss of artistic merit. This would make a good audio book as you could cruise along and if your mind wondered at least you would not lose the plot significantly. Or to put it another way if it was music you could get your hair cut with it in the background.

[Carolyn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought the plot was interesting and I was invested in all the characters right up until the abrupt ending. I liked how it showed the way different lives can intertwine and the different points of view of the characters, although I found Silva hard to connect to.

The ending really frustrated me and if there was a less ambiguous ending I would have given the book 4 stars but as it is I'm left with more questions than answers.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't take to any of the characters in this book, I thought the story was odd and not well thought through, No explanations / history which was frustrating. One of the worst endings of a book ever - rushed and rubbish.

[Marie (UK) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I struggled so much with this book, The first third I had no idea which character was "talking" for much of the time. The latter part had imagination and potential but never really reached it. Any action occurred in the last twenty or so pages after loads of nothing.

[Infamous Sphere · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow the end was significantly more grim than I was expecting! Also fuck Silva for being so weird about people not wanting children.

[Sue Hale · Rating 5 out of 5]

Morag Joss has a wonderful knack of putting emotions/feelings, that you never knew you had, into words. So much so that I laughed out loud at certain sentences, because they so accurately described emotions I had personally experienced. It was like she knew me and was writing for me.
Not to everyone's taste I'm sure, but she certainly pressed all my buttons with this novel. Kept me on the edge of my seat with suspense too.

[Dee Buck · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cleverly woven plot with great characters. It made me think about all the people that go missing every year.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cleverly devised plot involving three interesting characters who are all running away from life.