Our Precious Bond

Geneva hadn’t planned on falling in love that night.

But when the big, handsome, professional hockey player known only as “Y” arrives in her Vancouver Emergency Room with a leg injury, Geneva — the ER physician on duty — feels a strange vibration circling the space, “as if a wind had blown in with him and hadn’t yet settled. ”

Thus begins Our Precious Bond — an exquisitely written story of secret love, twin sisterhood, enduring family traditions, and more — all wrapped in an absorbing narrative just waiting to be made into a major motion picture.

Seriously, it’s that good.

Geneva and her twin sister Venice are part of a huge Swedish family that celebrates its rich heritage at the drop of a varmrökt lax  — that’s salmon smoked slowly over alderwood, brushed with clover honey. The delicacy is just one of many served at extended clan gatherings along with shared wisdom and an outpouring of love. These gatherings lend a warm backdrop to the developing storyline.

But the family collectively wonders: when will these two twins — one now an accomplished ER doctor and the other a successful attorney — find someone and settle down? Neither has shown an inclination toward serious relationships so far. But that’s about to change in a big way.

Alternately endearing, dramatic and lyrical by turns, this extraordinary book takes the reader on an intimate journey into the lives of the three primary players — Geneva, Venice, and the enigmatic hockey star known only as “Y” throughout the story. Along the way, we meet many singular supporting players.

There is Cloud, a Canadian First Nation anthropologist with a passion for helping his people achieve a bright future off the reservation. There is Grandpa, who startles his granddaughters with the revelation of an enduring devotion to a woman not his wife. And there is 80-year-old Sister Hilda, who extends redemptive hope one night to a schizophrenic young woman in a long red scarf — and, in so doing, touches many lives.

Exemplary writing abounds in these pages:

“I walked home in the dawn. The fog was lifting off the ocean to ascend into the North Shore Mountains in a diaphanous mist of beauty. As the morning came clear, I saw my world in a new light. My world, as I had known it, had changed. By choice, I had rendered it so.”

And,

“I had questioned my happiness, lost whatever there was to lose, and now
as I slowly find some, I treasure it with all my being. ”

And, finally, our favorite:

“She smiled at Grandpa. Their eyes met, and he smiled back. Those smiles held a thousand memories that the rest of us will never know, and love danced a terpsichorean delight around the room. ”

Five-plus stars to Our Precious Bond. Only rarely do we see such a sweeping story made intimate through the talents of a clear new voice in fiction.