Review: “Burning Bridges”
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.
