Jill Barnett, Bridge to Happiness

Bridge to Happiness

Jill Barnett

Belle Books, Jan 4 2011, $12.95

www.bellebooks.com

ISBN: 9781935661832

In San Francisco March Randolph and Mike Cantrell meet and fall in love. They marry, raise a family of four, and create a successful business together as she encourages him to take a chance on his dreams in the Sierras. Their efforts lead to snowboarding becoming popular sport.

Everything remains perfect even after three decades as a couple. Then in an instant, tragedy strikes with a wrong way driver. Traumatized and feeling all alone March can no longer look to the present or future for happiness; only the past gives her moments of joy though her friends and children had her strip her home of her beloved Mike. Yet she knows her loved ones have problems too as they need her to lead them back to living again, if she dares.

This is an entertaining profound family drama starring a strong cast but anchored by the matriarch. The Cantrells were golden for over thirty years when the gold ended with death leaving a mother unable to move forward from their grief. Jill Barnett eloquently makes a strong case that life goes on for the grievers as the inevitable death of one generation is replaced with the renewal of a new generation.

Harriet Klausner