r Currier pcurrier@lowellsun.com LOWELL >> After finding success in publishing her first-ever novel, “The Paper Route,” Lowell native Jacqueline Cayer Nelson McDonald is r e l e a s i n g her second novel, “The Hu m m i n g Bridge,” a sequel to her first. Like Jacqueline McDonald’s first book, “The Humming Bridge” follows the story of Jackie, a nowhigh-schooler in mid-century Lowell who begins to suspect the work of a serial killer in a string of deaths plaguing area hospitals, and who must again work with Detective Dahm to put an end to the murders. “Humming Bridge answers The Paper Route’s clif f-ha nger ending, ‘Where’s Jackie?’ The Paper Route’s eclectic cast of characters returns in Humming Bridge with startling revelations and fulfilled, readerexpressed hopes,” McDonald said in a Nov. 14 email. She said the story picks up in Greenwich Village in New York City, but returns to Lowell and presents readers with many familiar landmarks of the city. While the serial killer and murder mysteries are fictional, both novels are heavily inspired by McDonald’s experience growing up in Lowell, including having Jackie work as a nurse’s aide, which McDonald herself did during the summer as a teenager. “The title itself evokes memories of walking over the Merrimack River on the formerly named Aiken bridge to get to and from the former St. Joseph’s Hospital,” said McDonald. “The many landmarks in the story are places I visited as a child including some of the downtown restaurants including The Owl, The Cameo, Toni’s, and stores of yesteryear like Woolworth, Kresge, Bon Marche, Record Lane, etc.” McDonald began working on “The Humming Bridge” on Feb. 1 of this year from Casa Grande, Arizona, where she has lived for the past three years. She had intended to release it last year, but in August 2021 she had a near-fatal medical event and could not work on her writing. To refresh the memories of those who read “The Paper Route,” the sequel includes a summary of the first book in its prologue, McDonald said. McDonald was born in Lowell to a French-Canadian family, who regularly spoke both English and French. With a similar background, McDonald said she drew inspiration from the late Jack Kerouac. “Although he was a bit before my time, I’ve always felt a kinship with fellow Franco-American Lowellian, Jack Kerouac. He lived on ‘sad Beaulieu,’ a couple of streets down from where I was raised in the Centralville section of the city,” said McDonald. “Like Mr. Kerouac, I was and remain enamored of the written word. Unlike him, I’ve been an ordinary writer, high-school editor for the Lowell Sun newspaper, TV reporter for the Lowell Sun, freelance magazine article writer, commercial newsletter writer in the electronics and telecommunications industries, professional technical writer, children’s book author, and most recently, novelist.” After writing two books, McDonald said she hadn’t found success in following the more conventional rules of writing fiction, and instead found it easier to, in a way, work backwards. BOOKS L