Francine Rivers is generally celebrated for her book, Redeeming Love. I did quite enjoy it but not on the same scale as Bridge to Haven.

I confess to having had this book sitting in my ‘book pile’ for a while but on a whim picked it up. What treasure! I can’t really speak more highly about this book. Often Christian romances seem full of ‘too good to be true’ characters who only share a chaste kiss at the end of the novel. I’m not a Christian in this category and have never met one. Francine Rivers characters are drawn from life and have the same real struggles and doubts as the rest of us.

Bridge to Haven begins with a newborn baby being discovered in a small town lying under a bridge. It is picked up by the local Pastor and family, a little girl who is named Abra. However, by some strange twists of fate, Abra ends up being mainly raised by another local family, confused and feeling lost and unloved because of her rather shaky start.

She ends up travelling to 1950’s Hollywood where some of the big screen names of the time feature in the book. Her name is changed to Lena Scott and Abra feels more confused than ever as she works hard to become a big movie star before all the shallowness and fake living start to unravel before her.

Can Lena/Abra find a way back to the little town of Haven, or does she even want to? A really gripping page turner.