The Bracelet starts off with intrigue and excitement from the first page. Author Roberta Gately gives the reader a mystery from the first page with Abby Monroe, a new UN worker, taking a morning run in Geneva. To her surprise, she witnesses a woman falling from a fourth-floor balcony of one of the many “soaring office towers.”
Abby could not tell if the woman had been pushed or had fallen to the street right in front of her. Abby notices a bracelet sparkling on the dead woman’s arm. As she tries to examine the body, she hears a man from the balcony yelling. She hides while the man makes his way to where the dead woman is on the ground.
Eventually, Abby goes for help and when she returns, the body is missing. The opening scene plays an integral part in the rest of the novel. Abby continues to make her way from Geneva to Peshawar, Pakistan, “one of the world’s most unstable cities,” writes the author.
Abby made the journey to escape several setbacks and a lot of heartbreak she experienced in Boston. She had to leave her job as a nursing graduate working in a hospital in New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. With the hospital suffering major damage and still underwater, it closed for good. She and her best friend Emily moved to Boston.
She started working in a pediatric clinic where she was in charge of immunizations. She met and started dating an intern at the hospital. After three years of a near perfect life together, the recession hit. Abby got laid off and Eric, the boyfriend, took off. He dumped her in an email.
Abby’s plan was to make her own place in the world and decided to apply for a position with the United Nations, a six-month assignment tracking vaccine statistics. Her application for the position was accepted and she made her way to Pakistan.
After experiencing a woman falling to her death in front of her, she continues to dream about the event for weeks to come. She meets Najeela, the administrative assistant for the UN office with whom she is working and living. Abby also meets Najeela’s family and fiancé. Then there is the housekeeper, Hana, who presents the biggest surprise for the reader at the end of the book.
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