A grieving daughter’s search for her mother becomes a journey across alternate realities in this dazzling new thriller from the author of The Shining Girls that is "sheer thrilling madness with a big, beating heart that reminds us we're all connected" (Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author).
Death, cancer, violence, domestic abuse.
There are infinite realities. She’s looking for one . . .
Twenty-four-year-old Bridge is paralyzed by choices: all the other lives she could have lived, the decisions she could have made. And now, who she should be in the wake of her mother’s unexpected death.
Jo was a maverick neuroscientist fixated on an artifact she called the “dreamworm” that she believed could open the doors to other worlds. It was part of Jo’s grand delusion, her sickness, and it cost her everything, including her relationship with her daughter.
But in packing up Jo’s house, Bridge discovers Jo’s obsession hidden amongst her things. And the dreamworm works, exactly the way it’s supposed to, the way Bridge remembers from when she was a little girl. Suddenly Bridge can step into other realities, otherselves. In one of them, could she find out what really happened to her mother? What Bridge doesn’t know is that there are others hunting for the dreamworm—who will kill to get their hands on it.
Bridge is a highly original, reality-bending thrill-ride that could only have come from the brilliant mind of award-winning novelist, Lauren Beukes, about mothers and daughters, hunters and seekers, and who we each choose to be.
Don't just take our word for it...
“Lauren Beukes’ multiverse is sheer thrilling madness with a big, beating heart that reminds us that we’re all connected in the end.”
– Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires and How To Sell a Haunted House
“Beukes’s plotting is tight, her many voices never muddle, and the pacing never falters as Bridge tears through worlds. . . . You can tell Beukes is having an absolute blast putting words on the page. Her fun is evident in the big, bloody action sequences; in the squirmy, almost retro grotesqueness of the dreamworm. And she does it all while probing one of life’s most tantalizing questions: How do we become the people we are?”
– New York Times Book Review
“Vast in scope and heart, Bridge is both a thrilling exploration of the known universe and an intimate portrayal of a daughter’s yearning for her mother. Lauren Beukes has crafted a suspenseful, deeply immersive odyssey that will make you consider the alternate possibilities inside us all. A perfect summer read.”
– Katie Gutierrez, nationally bestselling author of the Good Morning America Book Club Pick More Than You’ll Ever Know
Taste the very first page
Portrait of a Kidnapping
April 2006
On the long stretches of highway, her mom lets her sit up front next to her, although Bridge has to slouch down when they pass a police car, because they are being a little bit naughty and seven-year-olds are supposed to sit in the back. The road is a dark ribbon through the trees, like in the story about the little girl escaping from the witch Baba Yaga and her chicken-footed house.
You don’t have to think like that, Mom says. There’s no one chasing us. But her eyes flick to the mirror again and again, and when she has to pull over at the gas station to take her pills so she doesn’t get fits, she sits waiting in the car, watching the parking lot, before she goes inside, and Bridge can’t stay behind because I need you to pick the best doughnuts.
“Isn’t this nice, the two of us getting away? Surprise vacation!”
“I miss Bear,” Bridge says. “And also Daddy.” Her dad is a very busy guy. And motels don’t allow galumphing Labradors. But it doesn’t feel like a vacation. It’s not very fun. And she thinks maybe this is her fault because of what happened at her mom’s lab, which isn’t really her lab, but the professor lets her come there to do her studies and sneak Bridge in. It’s boring there. She is not allowed to climb the high wooden…
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