The Page 69 Test: "A Bridge Across the Ocean"

Sunday, April 2, 2017

"A Bridge Across the Ocean"

Susan Meissner is a multi-published author, speaker and writing workshop leader with a background in community journalism. Her novels include A Bridge Across the Ocean and

Secrets of a Charmed Life, a Goodreads Best Historical Fiction finalist for 2015. She is also RITA finalist and Christy Award winner. Meissner is also a writing workshop volunteer for Words Alive, a San Diego non-profit dedicated to helping at-risk youth foster a love for reading and writing.

Meissner applied the Page 69 Test to A Bridge Across the Ocean and reported the following:

From page 69:
Brette refilled her wineglass. It was a few minutes after seven. Her parents were probably just sitting down to eat in the little breakfast room off the B and B’s kitchen. She’d wait a bit. Maybe she’d ask if her mother wanted to get together for dinner later in the week so that she could ask her questions in person rather than over the phone. She was sure now that her mother had to have weighed the risks and opted to take her chances. But had she brooded over it first, like Brette was doing now? Did she have to be talked into trying to have a baby? Was her dad the one who’d said, “Are we really going to let fear dictate our decision here?” Or had it been Nadine who asked that question and then answered it with a decisive,” No, we’re not.” And then of course her maternal grandmother had the Sight as well. Had she wrestled with whether to have children? Did her mom ever ask?

Brette sat down at her laptop and opened a web browser. While she waited to call her mom, she’d trawl the Internet to search for a paranormal professional. Keith had said maybe she needed to speak to a psychologist, but Brette didn’t think that was the place to start. She needed an educated professional, but it had to be someone who had the practical expertise to advise her. Someone who didn’t think she was nuts.
A Bridge Across the Ocean is a story about two European war brides who meet aboard the RMS Queen Mary in 1946, but it’s also a story about a woman named Brette Caslake in the current day, who just wants to live a normal, uncomplicated life. The family gift of being able to see ghosts is making that impossible, however.

Page sixty-nine is fairly clear picture of what bothers Brette the most about the odd gifting that appears randomly in the women in her family. Her husband Keith wants to start a family. He’s not afraid they might have a girl and that Brette might pass on to that daughter the ability to see ghosts. Brette now wishes she hadn’t hid so much from Keith about what it’s like to live with the Sight. In this scene, Keith has just asked her to do two things while he’s away on a business trip: Ask her mother if she worried she’d pass on the gift and how did she get past that worry and decide to have a child? And two, find an expert who understands Brette’s ability and can help her navigate it so that she’s the one in control, not the gifting. This excerpt is a couple days’ into Keith’s trip. Brette hasn’t done either of the two things she said she’d do and she can feel the clock ticking until his return.