Book Review: A Bridge Across the Ocean by Susan Meissner
A Bridge Across the Ocean
by Susan Meissner
February, 1946. World War Two is over, but the recovery from the most intimate of its horrors has only just begun for Annaliese Lange, a German ballerina desperate to escape her past, and Simone Deveraux, the wronged daughter of a French Resistance spy.
Now the two women are joining hundreds of other European war brides aboard the renowned RMS Queen Mary to cross the Atlantic and be reunited with their American husbands. Their new lives in the United States brightly beckon until their tightly-held secrets are laid bare in their shared stateroom. When the voyage ends at New York Harbor, only one of them will disembark...
Present day. Facing a crossroads in her own life, Brette Caslake visits the famously haunted Queen Mary at the request of an old friend. What she finds will set her on a course to solve a seventy-year-old tragedy that will draw her into the heartaches and triumphs of the courageous war brides and will ultimately lead her to reconsider what she has to sacrifice to achieve her own deepest longings. _______________ Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a huge Susan Meissner fan. She is one of the authors on my very short auto-buy list – meaning, as soon as I hear she has a new book out, I preorder it, haha. Though she has written over a dozen books, I am most familiar with her historical fiction novels and have read them all. They are all wonderful, though I believe some to be better than others.
"A Bridge Across The Ocean" was fantastic. Because I stalk her blog and Facebook, I read up on several interviews and sneak peeks leading up to this novel's release, so I was not at all surprised by the ghostly apparitions it contains. It was different, sure, but it was VERY well done and I think it worked absolutely perfectly in this story. The ghosts (Drifters, as they are called in the book) are not scary or creepy or anything. In fact, Meissner's book "A Sound Among The Trees" raised the hair on my arms far more often than this book did.
Meissner's prose is magnificent and her research impeccable. While the setup of this book took a little longer, and there were far more leading characters to follow, I never felt lost or got overwhelmed. The slower pace in the beginning allowed me to savor each character as he or she was introduced, but as soon as I hit the first plot point I was done for. I could NOT put it down (typical Meissner style). Unfortunately, I completely irritated my husband because I was so absorbed in the story I couldn't hear either him or the children calling for me, haha. I stayed up until 2am to finish it, and what a satisfying ending it was! Normally I say that Meissner's books don't have “happy endings” but they “end well.” This one was both. And the plot twists had me guessing every time. Another beautiful read that I would recommend to fans of well-researched historical fiction with a literary bent.
**NOTE: The main portion of the story takes place during WWII. We all know what horrific crimes were committed during that time, on all sides. One of the characters in this book is raped, and while I was surprised that Meissner chose to narrate the incident, it was very brief (less than half a page) and very tastefully done. Just wanted to offer a heads up for those that might be concerned about content like that.
February, 1946. World War Two is over, but the recovery from the most intimate of its horrors has only just begun for Annaliese Lange, a German ballerina desperate to escape her past, and Simone Deveraux, the wronged daughter of a French Resistance spy.
Now the two women are joining hundreds of other European war brides aboard the renowned RMS Queen Mary to cross the Atlantic and be reunited with their American husbands. Their new lives in the United States brightly beckon until their tightly-held secrets are laid bare in their shared stateroom. When the voyage ends at New York Harbor, only one of them will disembark...
Present day. Facing a crossroads in her own life, Brette Caslake visits the famously haunted Queen Mary at the request of an old friend. What she finds will set her on a course to solve a seventy-year-old tragedy that will draw her into the heartaches and triumphs of the courageous war brides and will ultimately lead her to reconsider what she has to sacrifice to achieve her own deepest longings. _______________ Anyone who knows me well knows that I am a huge Susan Meissner fan. She is one of the authors on my very short auto-buy list – meaning, as soon as I hear she has a new book out, I preorder it, haha. Though she has written over a dozen books, I am most familiar with her historical fiction novels and have read them all. They are all wonderful, though I believe some to be better than others.
"A Bridge Across The Ocean" was fantastic. Because I stalk her blog and Facebook, I read up on several interviews and sneak peeks leading up to this novel's release, so I was not at all surprised by the ghostly apparitions it contains. It was different, sure, but it was VERY well done and I think it worked absolutely perfectly in this story. The ghosts (Drifters, as they are called in the book) are not scary or creepy or anything. In fact, Meissner's book "A Sound Among The Trees" raised the hair on my arms far more often than this book did.
Meissner's prose is magnificent and her research impeccable. While the setup of this book took a little longer, and there were far more leading characters to follow, I never felt lost or got overwhelmed. The slower pace in the beginning allowed me to savor each character as he or she was introduced, but as soon as I hit the first plot point I was done for. I could NOT put it down (typical Meissner style). Unfortunately, I completely irritated my husband because I was so absorbed in the story I couldn't hear either him or the children calling for me, haha. I stayed up until 2am to finish it, and what a satisfying ending it was! Normally I say that Meissner's books don't have “happy endings” but they “end well.” This one was both. And the plot twists had me guessing every time. Another beautiful read that I would recommend to fans of well-researched historical fiction with a literary bent.
**NOTE: The main portion of the story takes place during WWII. We all know what horrific crimes were committed during that time, on all sides. One of the characters in this book is raped, and while I was surprised that Meissner chose to narrate the incident, it was very brief (less than half a page) and very tastefully done. Just wanted to offer a heads up for those that might be concerned about content like that.
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