Our new Jeff McQuede Mystery Crying Woman Bridge will be out this fall!
The idea for our new, soon to be published Jeff McQuede mystery, Crying Woman Bridge, started with a legend, specifically, the legend of La Llorona. We had first heard about this prominent tale while visiting the Southwest. The Hispanic stories have several variations, but they all deal with a woman who has sacrificed a child or children by drowning. She commits this terrible act for the sake of her lover and ends up crazed with regret. In many retellings of the story, the weeping woman, La Llorona, can be heard along the river’s edge crying Ay mis hijos! which translates to, Oh, my children!
During our research we found that La Llorona wasn’t the only mother weeping for lost children. Throughout the United States many tales exist about bridges haunted either by weeping women or crying babies. This was the basis for our tale about a woman who is found standing by the bridge, weeping, crying for a lost child.