Across the Bridge felt the most personal of the three novels I’ve written. As I watched Todd’s body slowly decline, I struggled with God and the suffering in the world. But I followed some advice I heard on writing: “Tell a story about what you don’t understand.” How do we persevere in such a difficult life? How do we make peace with questions that can’t be answered?

I struggled and grew alongside my character Marcella Seppa. She’s hesitant to get close to widower Drew Smith, afraid of hurting his son, AJ, in the same way she was hurt when her father remarried within a year of her mother dying.

As I explored themes of love, loss, faith, doubt, and beauty and joy, the scenes unfold in my mind as if I was watching movie.

Across the Bridge made me cry while writing it. I hope that as you read Across the Bridge you’ll feel the richness I felt writing it.

Across the Bridge

Love weaves its way through the messiness of life on Copper Island.

When Marcella Seppa meets her new tenant, widower Drew Smith, a spark ignites, but she won’t consider dating him. She doesn’t want his son, AJ, to experience the hurt she felt when her dad remarried shortly after her mom died. Her faith unraveled, and she threw herself into exercise and gardening instead of forming trusting relationships. When Drew finds out he may not be AJ’s biological father, his first instinct is to leave Copper Island, but he wants to find out the truth. He seeks out Marcella’s support.

Is it possible their friendship could become more? But how would that affect AJ? Could love help make peace with the past?

Across the Bridge is part of the Copper Island series, but it can be read as a stand-alone novel.

Across the Bridge will make you laugh and cry. Deep, meaningful themes are woven into a fast-paced storyline.

After Marcella Seppa lost her mother when she was fifteen years old, her father quickly remarried, and her stepmother pushed too hard to foster a relationship with Marcella. Well-meaning people used Christian clichés in an attempt to comfort her, but it resulted in Marcella having a faith crisis. Is love worth the risk of loss, and how can you hold on to faith when questioning the idea of a puppet-master God?

Drew Smith moves to the small town of Quincy so that his in-laws can help raise his son, and he plugs into a local church where the leader of a boys group — and his deceased wife’s high school boyfriend — looks strikingly like his son. Drew fears losing part of his son’s heart to a man who even he admires for his height, charm, and cool job as a State Trooper. What does it mean to be a father, and what is the balance between protecting and preparing your child?

Across the Bridge also contains a theme dealing with ALS, a terminal disease that requires a team of caregivers. Readers who’ve met Grandma Lou in Snow Country will want to be with her again.

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