Book Spotlight: STRING BRIDGE

Title: String Bridge
Author: Jessica Bell
Genre: Woman's Contemporary
Publisher: Lucky Press, LLC
Release Date: November 2011
Pages: 288

I would like to thank the author/publisher for providing me with a copy of this book to review.

Favorite Line/Passage: Imagine standing in the middle of a field. Imagine red dirt. Distance and more beyond it. Imagine searching for the end of this distance, where the stars join to it like pins to a tent in loam. Imagine looking up to a cluster of approving eyes. Lying naked beneath them with the man you want to spend the rest of your life with. Imagine a silence that echos the touch of your hand to his cheek. Imagine existence being loud and small, the way the Sun lights up the Earth. Imagine you are the Earth and he is the Sun, that silence is tangible, and the stars are the souls of your previous lives. Imagine distance is the place you'll find life and death, where soil is your skin, and the dry fields your bones. Imagine love is the desert.

Description: Greek cuisine, smog and domestic drudgery was not the life Australian musician, Melody, was expecting when she married a Greek music promoter and settled in Athens, Greece. Keen to play in her new shoes, though, Melody trades her guitar for a 'proper' career and her music for motherhood. That is, until she can bear it no longer and plots a return to the stage--and the person she used to be. However, the obstacles she faces along the way are nothing compared to the tragedy that awaits, and she realizes she's been seeking fulfilment in the wrong place.

COVETED. A MUST READ!

My Splats: A poignantly written tale of family, marriage, love, betrayal, and the inner strength of one woman's human spirit to find her true place in her world.


I primarily read young adult and middle grade fiction, because of my love for the raw innocence within that age group. Saying that, I found String Bridge to have a similar pureness I look for when reading children's literature. The characters are well developed with meaningful and realistic inner struggles that a reader can easily relate to. 


Melody is a woman with a beautiful daughter and wonderful husband. She has a fantastic job doing something she loves to do--write and edit. But despite the coverall of a perfect, domestic life, she longs for the life she left behind--her music. Through reading Melody's thoughts and past experiences, the reader discovers that Melody left behind more than just her music when she decided to marry and start a family. She abandoned a part of her soul, the part that music freed up inside her.


The author's portrayal of Melody's search for inner self, purpose, and meaning, is at times gut-wrenching almost pithy, but always honest and true. The stormy pieces of her relationship with her mom add to the emotional depth and show how some childhood wounds simply never heal.


There's an elegance in Melody's pain over her mother's selfish ways. Melody's longing to find peace with her mother foreshadows her need for personal acceptance in who she is as a mom, wife, daughter, and musician. Along with this and trying to balance motherhood and work, tensions escalate within her marriage, making her question every decision she's ever made. And when tragedy strikes where she lest expects it, Melody realizes that life is a string of never-ending bridges in one's life and crossing each bridge is choosing to live.


You can support Jessica Bell by visiting her Blog, Website, Facebook, & Twitter. STRING BRIDGE can be found in e-book form at Amazon, Amazon (UK); Paperback - Barnes & Noble. Goodreads. A soundtrack is also being released with the book. How cool is that!! It's available at Amazon, Amazon UK, & iTunes. Read my INTERVIEW yesterday with her for even more links and details.