Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Bridge to Happiness: Book Review

Bridge To Happiness


About the Book:
From the luxury of San Francisco's famous hills to the wild freedom of the majestic snow-covered Sierra Mountains, BRIDGE TO HAPPINESS is the intensely dramatic story of one woman's life, the idyllic moments, her humanity, her love, and finally, the difficult road she must walk alone...to discover the strong woman she is destined to become. When March Randolph meets Mike Cantrell, she has no idea how her life will change, and how time will change her. For over three decades she and Mike forge a marriage, a family and a business together, helping to make snowboarding into a popular, worldwide winter sport, and raising four strong-willed and independent children into a adulthood, never once fearing the future won't be as golden as their past. In a heartbeat everything changes, and March and her family suffer a tragic change, one that drives a schism into her once perfect life, and will test the bonds of love and family far beyond any definition of recovery. Suddenly March is stuck in the past, unable to move forward, and only if she, alone, finds the strength and will to move on, can any of the Cantrells have a single, glimmer of hope at a new life of happiness. 

My Comments:
I enjoyed this story of first love, marital love, family love and new love.  March and Mike fall in love as teenagers in the late 1960's  They lived in San Francisco and while they later became part of the prosperous upper-middle class, they never lost the bohemian edge.  The story is told from March's point of view, in the first person, and Jill Barnett really makes you feel like you are there listening to her tell her story.  I hated to see the depths to which she sunk after tragedy, but cheered for her as she slowly got her life together again.  

While there is romance in the story, the book is not a romance; rather it is March's story, and March is a woman who loves, particularly her husband and children.  If such things are important to you, she is a woman of no discernible religious beliefs and while not graphic, the book does include bedroom scenes in which the couple is not married.  

I'd like to thank Bell Bridge Books for sending me a review copy of Bridge to Happiness.  Grade:  B.

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