Bright

This is a debut novel for Christine Melchior, who spent over twenty-five years in the career management field. She has been accepted to the prestigious Bread Loaf Writers' Conference in Middlebury, VT numerous times, where she honed her skills in fiction writing. She and her husband and two Rhodesian Ridgebacks live west of Boston.

Leeann Bright's idyllic childhood in the small New England town of Berkshire Ridge is interrupted when she witnesses the father she loves committing arson. He enlists her to keep it their secret, even though a man died in the fire. The twelve year old is left to bear the burden alone when her father abandons the family.Hoping to heal the wounds, she reaches out to Traci, daughter of the man killed in the fire. They bond as children and later as young professionals building careers in Boston. When Traci begins a search into the cause of her father's death, the two women find themselves in conflict. Leeann is faced with revealing the truth about the fire and her part in the deception, an admission that will set her and Traci free, but the cost may be too great.A REVIEW...."Readers of women's fiction will receive a treat with Christine Melchior's Bright, a story that opens in 1983 in Massachusetts, where twelve-year-old Leeann Bright observes a fire and her father running from it. Fast forward to 1998. Leeann works in a Boston high-rise and faces the lingering aftereffects of her father's involvement in the blaze when new information breaks open the arson case."As the timeline fluctuates between the 80s and Leeann's coming of age and new adult challenges, readers receive an engrossing story of the impact of adult decisions on a child's psyche and its reemergence in adulthood. Bright is highly recommended as a coming-of-age story of moral and ethical struggle and growth, and is a riveting inspection of intention and consequences."Diane Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review