The Secrets of Love Story Bridge Blog Tour!
Fredrik Backman meets The Cactus in THE SECRETS OF LOVE STORY BRIDGE (Park Row Books; April 28, 2020; $25.99 US/$32.50 CAN), in which a cynical single father has a surprise encounter on the famous love lock bridge, sparking a journey of self-discovery that may lead him to a second chance at love.
Single father Mitchell Fisher hates all things romance. He enjoys his job removing padlocks fastened to the famous "love lock" bridges of Upchester city. Only his young daughter, Poppy, knows that behind his disciplined veneer, Mitchell grieves the loss of her mother, Anita.
One fateful day, working on the bridge, Mitchell courageously rescues a woman who falls into the river. He’s surprised to feel a connection to her, but the woman disappears before he learns her name. To Mitchell’s shock, a video of the rescue goes viral, hailing him as "The Hero on the Bridge." He’s soon notified by the mysterious woman’s sister, Liza, that she has been missing for over a year. However, the only clue to where the woman could have gone is the engraved padlock she left on the bridge.
Mitchell finds himself swept up in Liza’s quest to find her lost sister. Along the way, with help from a sparkling cast of characters, Mitchell’s heart gradually unlocks, and he discovers new beginnings can be found in the unlikeliest places...
* * * *
The Secrets of Love Story Bridge tugged at my heart. It's the kind of story that's already set up to have you feel a special sense of protectiveness and care for the protagonist. Mitchell is a single dad who's lost his belief in love and romance since his partner, Anita died. Now caring for their nine year-old daughter, Mitchell has become a more practical and regimented person, looking for ways to occupy all the minutes of the day so that there's no room to think about her passing. He left a promising but time-consuming career as an architect to work for his local council where he removes padlocks on bridges placed there by couples who are hopelessly in love or people remembering their loved ones. It's decidedly less challenging and less money but it gives him the opportunity to focus on being a dad. He's going about his work one morning when he notices a woman attach a padlock to the bridge - much to Mitchell's dismay - but there's something alluring about her. As he watches her, he sees her fall off the bridge and he quickly jumps in after her. Once she's safe, they part ways though fate isn't done with them yet. In an unexpected coincidence it turns out the mysterious woman is connected to someone he knows. This person enlists Mitchell's help in finding her with what little information they can gleam from the incident and the publicity it has garnered. Now Mitchell, who has only craved the quiet, ordered life with his daughter, is thrust into another kind of life where he interacts with people again, and he can't seem to escape being the good guy or be the recipient of people's good intentions.
I have noticed the comparisons to Fredrik Backman's A Man Called Ove and I can see why. Much like Ove, Mitchell just wants to go about his life without having to deal with others but never the less gets caught up in it all. Since he's forced to interact with others, his introverted lifestyle has to make room for others now. It's the subtle way that these new interactions infiltrate his life and open him up again that makes this story so powerful. Patrick manages a delicate balancing act between demonstrating Mitchell's grief which gradually shifts towards slight trepidation befor moving on and finally accepting that there's still much to be a part of and celebrate in his life.
I liked the tender way Mitchell's story is told. There's something calming, kind of matter-of-fact about it that made me feel like I was invited into Mitchell's world. Those moments of grief were done tenderly. The moments of levity saw him reconnecting with the past and also welcoming new beginnings. I loved Patrick's other novel, The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper, and much like that The Secret of Love Story Bridge is insightful, uplifting and heartfelt.
~ Bel
+ + Author Bio + +
Phaedra Patrick is the author of The Library of
Lost and Found, Rise and Shine, Benedict Stone and The Curious Charms of
Arthur Pepper, which has been published in over twenty countries around the
world. She studied art and marketing, and has worked as a stained-glass artist,
film festival organizer and communications manager. An award-winning short
story writer, she now writes full-time. She lives in Saddleworth, UK, with her
husband and son.
+ + Excerpt + +
The Lilac
Envelope
The night
before
As he did often, over the past three years, Mitchell Fisher wrote
a letter he would never send.
He sat up in bed at midnight and kicked off his sheets. Even
though all the internal doors in his apartment were open, the sticky July heat
still felt like a shroud clinging to his body. His nine-year-old daughter Poppy
thrashed restlessly in her sleep, in the bedroom opposite.
Mitchell turned on his bedside lamp, squinting against the yellow
light, and took out a pad of Basildon Bond notepaper from underneath his bed.
He always used a fountain pen to write—old-fashioned he supposed, but he was a
man who valued things that were well-constructed and long-lasting.
Mitchell tapped the pen against his bottom lip. He knew what he
wanted to say, but by the time his words of sorrow and regret travelled from
his brain to his fingertips, they were only fragments of what he longed to
express.
As he started to write, the sound of the metal nib scratching
against paper helped him block out the city street noise that hummed below his
apartment.
Dearest Anita
Another
letter from me. Everything here is fine, ticking along. Poppy is doing well.
The school holidays start soon and I thought she’d be more excited. It’s
probably because you’re not here to enjoy them with us.
I’ve
taken two weeks off work to spend with her, and have a full itinerary planned
for us—badminton, tennis, library visits, cooking, walking, the park, swimming,
museums, cooking, a tour of the city bridges, and more. It will keep us busy.
Keep our minds off you.
You’ll be
amazed how much she’s grown, must be almost your height by now. I tell her how
proud I am of her, but it always means more coming from you.
Mitchell paused, resting his hand against the pad of paper. He had
to tell her how he felt.
Every
time I look at our daughter, I think of you. I wish I could hold you again, and
tell you I’m truly sorry.
Yours, always
Mitchell x
He read his words, always dissatisfied with them, never able to
convey the magnitude of grief and guilt he felt. After folding the piece of
paper once, he sealed it into a crisp, cream envelope, then squeezed it into
the almost-full drawer of his nightstand, amongst all the other letters he’d
written. His eyes fell upon the slim lilac envelope he kept on top, the one
addressed to him from Anita, that he’d not yet been able to bring himself to
open.
Taking that envelope out, he held it under his nose and inhaled.
There was still a slight scent of her on the paper, he thought, of violet soap.
His finger followed the angle of the gummed flap and then stopped. He closed
his eyes and willed himself to open the letter, but his fingernails dented
crescents into the paper.
Once more, he placed it back into his drawer.
Mitchell lay down and hugged himself, imagining Anita’s arms were
wrapped around him. But, when he closed his eyes, the words from all the
letters weighed down upon him like a bulldozer. As he turned and tried to
sleep, he pulled the pillow over his head to force them away.
1. A Locked
Heart
The lovers who attached their padlocks to the bridges of Upchester
might see it as a fun or romantic gesture but, to Mitchell, it was an act of
vandalism.
It was the hottest year on record in the city and the morning sun
was already beating down on the back of his neck. His biceps flexed as he
methodically opened and squeezed his bolt cutters shut, cutting the padlocks
off the cast-iron filigree panels of the old Victorian bridge, one by
one.
Since local boyband Word Up filmed the video for their
international smash hit “Lock Me Up with Your Love” on this bridge, thousands
of people were flocking to the small city in the North West of England. They
brought and attached locks marked with initials, names, messages, to
demonstrate their love for the band and each other, on the city’s five
bridges.
Large red and white signs that read no padlocks studded the pavement. But as far as Mitchell
could see, the locks still hung on the railings like bees swarming across
frames of honeycomb. The constant reminder of love surrounding him, other
people’s, made him feel like he was fighting for breath.
As he cut off the locks, he wanted to yell, ‘Why can’t you just
keep your feelings to yourselves?’
After several hours of hard work, Mitchell’s trail of broken locks
glinted on the pavement like a metal snake. He stopped for a moment and
narrowed his eyes as a young couple strolled toward him. The woman glided in a
white floaty dress and tan cowboy boots. The man wore shorts and had the
physique of an American football player. With his experience of carrying out
maintenance across the city’s public areas, Mitchell instinctively knew they
were up to something.
After breaking away from his girlfriend, the man walked to the
side of the bridge while nonchalantly pulling out a large silver padlock from
his pocket.
Mitchell tightened his grip on his cutters. He was once so easy
and in love with Anita, but rules were rules. ‘Excuse me,’ he called out. ‘You
can’t hang that lock.’
The man frowned and crossed his bulging arms. ‘Oh yeah? And who’s
going to stop me?’
Mitchell had the sinewy physique of a sprinter. He was angular all
over with dark hair and eyes, and a handsome dorsal hump on his nose. ‘I am,’
he said and put his cutters down on the pavement. He held out his hand for the
lock. ‘It’s my job to clear the bridges. You could get a fine.’
Anger flashed across the blond man’s face and he batted Mitchell’s
hand away, swiping off his work glove. Mitchell watched as it tumbled down into
the river below. Sometimes the water flowed prettily, but today it gushed and
gurgled, a bruise-grey hue. A young man had drowned here in a strong current
last summer.
The man’s girlfriend wrapped her arms around her boyfriend’s waist
and tugged him away. ‘Come on. Leave him alone.’ She cast Mitchell an
apologetic smile. ‘Sorry, but we’re so in love. It took us two hours and
three buses to get here. We’ll be working miles away from each other
soon. Please let us do this.’
The man looked into her eyes and softened. ‘Yeah, um, sorry,
mate,’ he said sheepishly. ‘The heat got the better of me. All we want to do is
fasten our lock.’
Mitchell gestured at the sign again. ‘Just think about what you’re
doing, guys,’ he said with a weary sigh. ‘Padlocks are just cheap chunks of
metal and they’re weighing down the bridges. Can’t you get a nice ring or
tattoo instead? Or write letters to each other? There are better ways to say I
lov– Well, you know. . .’
The man and the woman shared an incredulous look.
‘Whatever,’ the man glowered, and he shoved his padlock back into
the pocket of his shorts. ‘We’ll go to another bridge instead.’
‘I work on those too . . .’
The couple laughed at him and sauntered away.
Mitchell rubbed his nose. He knew his job wasn’t a glamorous one.
It wasn’t the one in architecture he’d studied hard and trained for. However,
it meant he could pay the rent on his apartment and buy Poppy hot lunch at
school each day. Whatever daily hassle he put up with, he needed the work.
His workmate Barry had watched the incident from the other side of
the road. Sweat circled under his arms and his forehead shone like a mirror as
he crossed over. ‘The padlocks keep multiplying,’ he groaned.
‘We need to keep on going.’
‘But it’s too damn hot.’ Barry undid a button on his polo shirt,
showing off unruly chest curls that matched the ones on his head. ‘It’s a
violation of our human rights, and no one can tell if we cut off twenty or two
hundred.’
Mitchell held his hand up against the glare of the sun. ‘We can
tell, and Russ wants the bridges cleared in time for the city centenary
celebrations.’
Barry rolled his eyes. ‘There’s only three weeks to go until then.
Our boss should come down here and get his hands dirty, too. At least join me
for a pint after work.’
Mitchell’s mouth felt parched, and he suddenly longed for an
ice-cold beer. A vision of peeling off his polo-shirt and socks and relaxing in
a beer garden appeared like a dreamy mirage in his head.
However, he had to pick Poppy up from the after-school club to
take her for a guitar lesson, an additional one to her music class in school.
Her headteacher, Miss Heathcliff, was a stickler for the school closing
promptly at 5.30pm, and it was a rush to get there on time. He lowered his eyes
and said, ‘I’d love to, but I have to dash.’
Then he selected his next padlock to attack.
Excerpted from The Secrets of Love Story Bridge
by Phaedra Patrick, Copyright © 2020 by Phaedra
Patrick.
Published by Park Row Books
