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Burning Bridges
Sara Richards-s world is rocked when three love letters from 1970 are delivered decades late. The letters were written by Paul Steinert, a young sailor who took her innocence with whispered words of love and promises of forever before leaving for Vietnam. Sara is left behind, broken hearted and pregnant, yearning for letters she never received. Now, years later, she discovers the betrayal wasn-t Paul-s when her mother confesses to a sin that changed their lives forever.
How can Sara reveal to Paul-s parents they have a granddaughter they-ve missed the chance to know? Even worse, how will she find the words to tell her daughter that she-s lived her life in the shadow of a lie?
Picking her way through the minefields of distrust and betrayal, Sara finds that putting her life together without burning any bridges will be the hardest thing she-s ever done.
- GenresRomance
232 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
April 25, 2021
At the tender age of seventeen, Sara meets the love of her life. Paul is a few years older, a Navy man about to be sent to Vietnam. Though he knows hanging out with the lovely teen is dangerous, the emotional connection between them is so powerful that he just can’t resist. On the eve of his departure they surrender to their mutual passion, then part, both promising to write faithfully.
After a few letters, though, Sara hears nothing from the man upon whom she bestowed her innocence. Has he forgotten her so soon? Then she discovers she’s pregnant from their one glorious night together and her life disintegrates. Instead of going away to college, she moves to another town to stay with her aunt, pretends to have been married to a soldier who died in Southeast Asia, and soon gives birth to a daughter. Her parents want her to give up the girl for adoption, but the usually obedient Sara rebels. Paula, as she names the baby, is her only remaining link to the man she still loves despite his silence and apparent indifference.
Paul is truly smitten by Sara, despite her youth. Determined to marry her when he returns from the war, he eagerly awaits her promised missives, but after one or two notes, he hears no further word from her. Eventually he comes to believe she deceived him about her feelings – that he was just a fling for a frivolous teenager. He barely escapes death in Vietnam. When he returns to the U.S. he looks up the woman who still owns his heart, only to discover she’s been faithless, marrying another serviceman and bearing his child as soon as Paul’s out of the picture.
This is the prelude to Anne Krist’s emotionally intense second chance romance Burning Bridges. The actual novel takes place years later. Sara is in her fifties, her daughter Paula in her thirties, when a freak incident uncovers the truth: Sara’s parents had intercepted her letters to Paul and vice versa, allowing the young lovers to believe they’d been duped and dumped. Sara’s father even lied about Paul’s death.
Ms. Krist does an amazing job portraying Sara’s complicated and ambiguous feelings in response to this revelation. Her entire life has been derailed, her heart’s desire snatched from her grasp, all because of her parents’ deception. I was so angry on her behalf I would not have shied away from fictional murder! As she struggles to come to terms with this horrific betrayal, she decides to visit Paul’s parents on their Iowa farm and let them know they have a daughter. To her shock, she finds that Paul is still alive, living and working with his brother on the family homestead, deeply embittered and fiercely lonely.
He’s nearly as astonished as Sara when she shows up. But it will take a great deal of time and effort to heal the wounds they’ve unintentionally inflicted on one another. Burning Bridges chronicles their mistrust, their misunderstandings and their anger as they struggle to accept and move on. The incandescent connection from decades earlier is still there, still real – but perhaps that just isn’t enough.
I deeply enjoyed this novel for its complexity, subtlety and intensity. However it strained my credibility to some extent. Would a brief, youthful affair really brand these two people so deeply? Would their love really survive forty years of their separate lives? I guess if you’re reading romance, you have to believe that a soul mate connection is unbreakable and forever. Otherwise the genre just doesn’t work.
I was also rather irritated by Paul’s self-centeredness and jealousy. He’s incredibly quick to think the worst of Sara in every situation, repeatedly branding her a slut and a liar, even when she has proven she’s sincere. Obviously he was hurt before and still bears the scars, but common decency should suggest he give her the benefit of the doubt.
I realize that my reactions to Paul, like my fury with Sara’s mother, indicates that Ms. Krist managed to make these characters very real to me. That in itself is a measure of this book’s quality.
After a few letters, though, Sara hears nothing from the man upon whom she bestowed her innocence. Has he forgotten her so soon? Then she discovers she’s pregnant from their one glorious night together and her life disintegrates. Instead of going away to college, she moves to another town to stay with her aunt, pretends to have been married to a soldier who died in Southeast Asia, and soon gives birth to a daughter. Her parents want her to give up the girl for adoption, but the usually obedient Sara rebels. Paula, as she names the baby, is her only remaining link to the man she still loves despite his silence and apparent indifference.
Paul is truly smitten by Sara, despite her youth. Determined to marry her when he returns from the war, he eagerly awaits her promised missives, but after one or two notes, he hears no further word from her. Eventually he comes to believe she deceived him about her feelings – that he was just a fling for a frivolous teenager. He barely escapes death in Vietnam. When he returns to the U.S. he looks up the woman who still owns his heart, only to discover she’s been faithless, marrying another serviceman and bearing his child as soon as Paul’s out of the picture.
This is the prelude to Anne Krist’s emotionally intense second chance romance Burning Bridges. The actual novel takes place years later. Sara is in her fifties, her daughter Paula in her thirties, when a freak incident uncovers the truth: Sara’s parents had intercepted her letters to Paul and vice versa, allowing the young lovers to believe they’d been duped and dumped. Sara’s father even lied about Paul’s death.
Ms. Krist does an amazing job portraying Sara’s complicated and ambiguous feelings in response to this revelation. Her entire life has been derailed, her heart’s desire snatched from her grasp, all because of her parents’ deception. I was so angry on her behalf I would not have shied away from fictional murder! As she struggles to come to terms with this horrific betrayal, she decides to visit Paul’s parents on their Iowa farm and let them know they have a daughter. To her shock, she finds that Paul is still alive, living and working with his brother on the family homestead, deeply embittered and fiercely lonely.
He’s nearly as astonished as Sara when she shows up. But it will take a great deal of time and effort to heal the wounds they’ve unintentionally inflicted on one another. Burning Bridges chronicles their mistrust, their misunderstandings and their anger as they struggle to accept and move on. The incandescent connection from decades earlier is still there, still real – but perhaps that just isn’t enough.
I deeply enjoyed this novel for its complexity, subtlety and intensity. However it strained my credibility to some extent. Would a brief, youthful affair really brand these two people so deeply? Would their love really survive forty years of their separate lives? I guess if you’re reading romance, you have to believe that a soul mate connection is unbreakable and forever. Otherwise the genre just doesn’t work.
I was also rather irritated by Paul’s self-centeredness and jealousy. He’s incredibly quick to think the worst of Sara in every situation, repeatedly branding her a slut and a liar, even when she has proven she’s sincere. Obviously he was hurt before and still bears the scars, but common decency should suggest he give her the benefit of the doubt.
I realize that my reactions to Paul, like my fury with Sara’s mother, indicates that Ms. Krist managed to make these characters very real to me. That in itself is a measure of this book’s quality.
March 13, 2020
"Sara, you have to understand, Dad and I only wanted what was best for you. You were a child, a high school senior with a wonderful future in front of you. You'd been accepted at William and Mary. The last thing you needed was to get mixed up with a sailor who would love you and leave you. Which, I might add, is exactly what he did."
But that wasn't entirely true, was it? Paul Steinert did not leave Sara. He had not abandoned her as she had thought. Sara's letters had never reached him, and his letters had never reached her. Until now — a lifetime after she had given Paul her innocence and her heart. However, what good were the letters now? Paul was still dead.
Only now, when she realised the extent of her parent's betrayal, did Sara want to get in contact with Paul's parents. She had not before, fearing that they would try to take her baby, Paul's baby, away from her. But now Paula was all grown up. And Paul's parent's deserved to know the truth. Sara was done with the lies her parents had weaved.
Little did she know that when she finally reached Paul's parent's farm in Omaha that life as she knew it would be irrevocably changed forever.
From the discovery of first love in the '70s to the trauma caused when long-hidden secrets and betrayals come into the light, Burning Bridges by Anne Krist is the highly emotional story of Sara Richards and the man she had loved since she was seventeen.
Burning Bridges is raw, emotional and compellingly beautiful from start to finish. I was drawn into the drama, the protracted suspense of a lie that had caused so much damage to so many people for so long. The skillfully presented narrative and the almost lyrical prose made reading this book almost effortless, and it certainly made it next to impossible to put down. In fact, I read it in one sitting.
Burning Bridges is a romance that is a lifetime in the making. A love that was cruelly snatched away by those whose intentions may well have been good, but who failed miserably to calculate the magnitude of the effect their decision would have on their daughter. Thinking they were doing the right thing, hoping to avoid a scandal, they spun a truth which was as false as it was coldly calculated. Their first mistake was thinking that their seventeen-year-old daughter was incapable of knowing the difference between love and lust. The second was that they continued this fabrication of the truth for decades.
This book very nearly broke my heart. As Sara confronts the magnitude of the lie that has been spun, she feels a moral duty to try and make things right. To seek out Paul's parents and explain. To tell her daughter, Paula, about this other family she knows nothing about. But what Sara had not been prepared for was the reality. The truth behind the lie. The fact that she, in her innocence, should have tried harder, fought harder to find out the truth. All of which is inconsequential when she gets out her car and comes face to face with her past in ways she could not have possibly imagined.
Krist has not only given her readers a compelling story, but the characters themselves were endlessly fascinating. The protagonists in this story are the kind a reader roots for, and the romance is as swoon-worthy as it is passionate.
Sara really stole my heart. She has been forced to live a lie, and when she realises what her parents had done, she has to find an inner strength that she never knew she possessed to get through it. This emotional rollercoaster of a story utterly captivated me. I could not read the words fast enough. I could not flip those pages quickly enough. I became enthralled in the story that Krist has penned. Burning Bridges is utterly captivating from start to finish.
Burning Bridges is more than a romance book. It is a sweeping family saga. Paula, Sara's grown-up daughter, is also an integral part of this book. Like her mother, Paula is almost fearful of following her heart. She loves her long-term boyfriend Dan, but when he asks her to move to Chicago with him, she fears to leave everything that she knows. These insecurities and her discovery that her mother had lied to her made for a riveting read.
Burning Bridges by Anne Krist is a story of a love that will not be denied — that cannot be denied. Times does not change what the soul knew before Sara and Paul ever met. Their love is eternal, and they can weather any storm, any lie, to the very end of time if necessary. I loved every minute of this book. If you are looking for you next great romance, then look no further. Burning Bridges has it all, and then some.
I Highly Recommend.
Review by Mary Anne Yarde.
The Coffee Pot Book Club.
January 28, 2020
Family drama filled with intensified emotional moments repeatedly takes place in this extremely compelling story, where every single situation is convincingly portrayed with much realism. From what circumstances cause an event to occur to how an individual reacts to any happenings, I was pulled into each vividly described incident and became eager to learn if there would be any consequences. The impact on quite a few of the featured characters is often very unexpected, and what choices they choose to make could greatly alter not only their lives but those close to them, too. Rarely does a story come along where I am touched in countless ways because of how much a scene affects me, yet this writer constantly does so with her first release. The name of Anne Krist will become recognized as an author who conveys genuine and heightened feelings between her memorable characters.
When Sara Richards receives letters that she should have gotten thirty-five years ago, she eventually discovers these three pieces of lost mail were not the only correspondence she never saw. A fling with a Navy sailor before he was sent to Vietnam left her despondent when Paul Steinert leaves and no word is ever heard from him again, especially when she ended up pregnant. But upon learning that Paul not only sent these letters but more that were purposely kept from her could drastically change the life of Sara and her grown daughter, depending on her next decision.
With surprising twists and believable interplay between characters, BURNING BRIDGES is an unforgettable love story filled with passionate desires and potent emotions. I was totally stunned at times, because some facts were definitely not anticipated. As Sara tries to make sense of what happened in the past and how it led to her current existence, she keeps uncovering truths which add extra turmoil to her life. All that took place when she was just a teenager now seems almost overwhelming to her as an adult. Sara knows that whatever choices she makes in the present will have a lasting effect on a large number of lives, and she must move forward carefully or the price could be too high. I will long remember this outstanding story, where honest feelings are expressed with much sincerity and the characters are particularly true-to-life.
When Sara Richards receives letters that she should have gotten thirty-five years ago, she eventually discovers these three pieces of lost mail were not the only correspondence she never saw. A fling with a Navy sailor before he was sent to Vietnam left her despondent when Paul Steinert leaves and no word is ever heard from him again, especially when she ended up pregnant. But upon learning that Paul not only sent these letters but more that were purposely kept from her could drastically change the life of Sara and her grown daughter, depending on her next decision.
With surprising twists and believable interplay between characters, BURNING BRIDGES is an unforgettable love story filled with passionate desires and potent emotions. I was totally stunned at times, because some facts were definitely not anticipated. As Sara tries to make sense of what happened in the past and how it led to her current existence, she keeps uncovering truths which add extra turmoil to her life. All that took place when she was just a teenager now seems almost overwhelming to her as an adult. Sara knows that whatever choices she makes in the present will have a lasting effect on a large number of lives, and she must move forward carefully or the price could be too high. I will long remember this outstanding story, where honest feelings are expressed with much sincerity and the characters are particularly true-to-life.
July 12, 2020
Sara Richards was young and innocent when she met and fell in love with Paul Steinert. With whispered words of endearment, he promises things a young woman yearns to hear. But when Paul leaves for Vietnam, he leaves Sara crushed and pregnant. Her parents never liked him and this proves they were right. Or were they? Flash forward thirty years and Sara received three love letters from Paul before he was killed in Vietnam. Armed with the letters, she realizes the betrayal wasn't Paul's but someone she thought would never hurt her. Armed with the truth, she must cross burned bridges to forge a new future for herself and her daughter.
Burned Bridges is a compelling family drama filled with young love, best intentions, regret, betrayal, forgiveness, and second chances. Anne Krist builds the conflict and emotional trauma with the same flair as a pastry chef makes a showcase cake. Layer upon layer, emotion rises until the characters have no choice but to react. The plot moves at a good pace with plenty of characters to interact with. Superb characterization of the main characters, especially Sara. The conflict is very realistic but over overly done. The finale left me a little empty, as if I had cried for an hour but in a good way. Life is often a series of events out of our control. How we react and move forward is the key to a well-lived life. If you love dramatic family sagas with plenty of emotion, you have to read Burning Bridges. Highly recommend!
My Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by: Mrs. N
This review first appeared: https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/po...
Burned Bridges is a compelling family drama filled with young love, best intentions, regret, betrayal, forgiveness, and second chances. Anne Krist builds the conflict and emotional trauma with the same flair as a pastry chef makes a showcase cake. Layer upon layer, emotion rises until the characters have no choice but to react. The plot moves at a good pace with plenty of characters to interact with. Superb characterization of the main characters, especially Sara. The conflict is very realistic but over overly done. The finale left me a little empty, as if I had cried for an hour but in a good way. Life is often a series of events out of our control. How we react and move forward is the key to a well-lived life. If you love dramatic family sagas with plenty of emotion, you have to read Burning Bridges. Highly recommend!
My Rating: 5 stars
Reviewed by: Mrs. N
This review first appeared: https://www.nnlightsbookheaven.com/po...
June 25, 2020
A beautiful story that will stay with you for a long time.
Sara Richards was young and innocent when she fell in love with Paul Steinert, a sailor who would soon leave for Vietnam. The quicker the better as far as her parents were concerned. All too soon Paul was gone, leaving Sara pregnant and devastated that he’d walked away and forgotten her. Then the news he'd been killed in Vietnam, not knowing he had a baby daughter. Decades later Sara’s life is thrown into turmoil when three love letters from Paul Steinert, written in 1970, are delivered. The betrayal was not his but her parents who purposely kept all those yearned for letters from her. As more truths are revealed Sara must make choices and the first is to tell Paul’s parents that they have a grown granddaughter. Knocking on their door was incredibly hard but nothing prepared her for what was on the other side of that door. Paul very much alive.
We are not the same people we were twenty or thirty years ago, and this is one of the bridges Sara and Paul must cross – if they can.
Sara Richards was young and innocent when she fell in love with Paul Steinert, a sailor who would soon leave for Vietnam. The quicker the better as far as her parents were concerned. All too soon Paul was gone, leaving Sara pregnant and devastated that he’d walked away and forgotten her. Then the news he'd been killed in Vietnam, not knowing he had a baby daughter. Decades later Sara’s life is thrown into turmoil when three love letters from Paul Steinert, written in 1970, are delivered. The betrayal was not his but her parents who purposely kept all those yearned for letters from her. As more truths are revealed Sara must make choices and the first is to tell Paul’s parents that they have a grown granddaughter. Knocking on their door was incredibly hard but nothing prepared her for what was on the other side of that door. Paul very much alive.
We are not the same people we were twenty or thirty years ago, and this is one of the bridges Sara and Paul must cross – if they can.
January 28, 2021
I greatly enjoyed this love story between Sarah and Paul after several decades of not seeing each other due to deception, misunderstandings, and anger. Sarah's parents made sure her letters never got to Paul while he was in the navy, and she never got his letters either. She was young and fell pregnant, but over the years, her daughter, Paula would never know about her true father until years later. Sarah later finds out Paul died in the navy and is devastated, but over the years she had never forgotten her first love. A series of events occur many years later and truths are faced. I felt frustrated at times by the mistrust, the miscommunication, and the deception, and didn't always like Sarah. She was too afraid to speak up and could've told the truth, particularly with her daughter, Paula (who she named after her first love, Paul). I wanted to slap Sarah and wondered why she had to keep so many secrets and lies to herself. Overall, it was a page-turning book, and I highly recommend it.
July 25, 2020
I love the trope of second chance romance and more mature heroes and heroines, I think there aren't enough of them in romantic fiction. I loved this book. It is very well written, thoughtful and tender, and really draws you into the inner life and relationships of the characters. Paul and Sara had a whirlwind romance when he was a young sailor about to leave for Vietnam. He left, she was pregnant, then she thought him dead. Decades later fate throws them back together. But it's not as simple as rekindling the flame. They are different people, with a lot of trust issues and misunderstandings to overcome. There are families to deal with, and of course the adult daughter who is facing her own relationship difficulties. Sara has a new beau, and it's not long before a nice woman starts taking an interest in Paul! I really liked the realistic way in which the characters fall in love again, and deal with all the problems in their way. The happy ending when it comes is richly deserved!
July 13, 2020
A story about second-chance romance.
For me the story was a little predictable. From the beginning with the letters her parents kept from her to finding out the man wasn’t dead. It was a well written story with well rounded characters. I just wish it wouldn’t have been so predictable.
For me the story was a little predictable. From the beginning with the letters her parents kept from her to finding out the man wasn’t dead. It was a well written story with well rounded characters. I just wish it wouldn’t have been so predictable.
March 2, 2020
Review to follow...!
September 18, 2021
Sacha's Book Reviews Blog
This came to me via a book club, and I chose it because I was in the mood for a secret-baby romance with a twist, and this seemed to fit the bill. I noticed the blurb doesn’t mention a big factor, which makes it hard to write a review without giving away a spoiler, but I’ll try.
The Premise
Upon receipt of long-lost letters from decades ago, Sara realises that the entire life she built for herself and her daughter Paula was based on lies. When her mother admits to deceiving her by intercepting their communication in order to protect her underage teenage daughter from getting involved with an older man, Sara struggles to forgive her in the present, but more importantly — she now learns that her first love did not betray her when he left for the military and lost contact with her prior to his death. Their child is now an adult, but Sara realises it may be time to seek out her past lover Paul’s family and let them know about Paula. But when she goes there, she finds much more than she had ever bargained for — and her own lies catch up to her as she tries to open her heart to a second-chance romance.
The Pros
Generally the story was good, and I enjoyed each of the main characters and understood their motivations for behaving the way they did. The author took time to develop each character, even the side characters. There were very realistic moments that you usually won’t find in a typical romance, and I appreciated the inclusion of these. All of the relationships were heavily fraught with emotional angst: Paula on the cusp of making a big leap in her love life, Sara and Matthew in an older/younger friendship/relationship that isn’t clearly defined, Sara and her mother trying to heal after decades of lies crumble on them both. The tension was well developed, and there were a few scenes in particular that had me hanging off the edge of my seat — well done!
The Cons
However, there were a few choppy parts in terms of pacing — one moment we’re experiencing every single nuance of emotion with the characters, and the next I’m wishing I knew more about what had happened in the past few weeks. Also, the narrative was written in third person and though there were so many characters here that first-person wouldn’t have been feasible, still I wished it particularly during the sexy or highly dramatic moments, because it’s hard to convey all this emotion in the third person — it resulted in characters actually speaking aloud their feelings, instead of just feeling them and keeping them privy to the reader.
Conclusion
I enjoyed this second-chance, secret-baby, military romance a lot, and appreciated that despite ticking the boxes in terms of tropes, there was a lot of originality here that breathed through the novel and kept me interested. It was an easy read, and well fleshed out to be much, much more than just a romance. There are heavy elements of women’s fiction here, with all the female relationships — Sara and her mother, Paula and Sara, and even the developing relationship between Sara and her business partner. There was also a focus on the male relationships, which I liked as well. I would recommend this book to anyone who appreciates a good story with an emotional overload.
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November 13, 2016
BURNING BRIDGES by Anne Krist is a powerful love story which reminds us that real love is imperfect and complex, but well worth having. Sara and Paul were young lovers kept apart by manipulation and self-doubt. Sara believes Paul was killed in Vietnam, and he never knew that she bore his child. Decades later, Sara receives recently discovered letters written by Paul from Vietnam. Her mother had blocked most of the letters they had written to each other. Her father had told her that Paul had been killed in the line of duty. Sara decides to visit Paul's parents to tell them that they have a grown daughter. When she reaches his family's farm, she finds Paul himself! Many deep emotional issues are faced before the love which Paul and Sara have always felt for each other burns old bridges and builds new ones into the future.
October 1, 2008
A wonderful story about lost love reunited, a powerful story about rebuilding lives after their foundations have been irretrievably shaken. This is one of those books you'll want to read again and again.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews