Summaries from Reviews:

'In Aidan Chambers' latest novel for young adults, seventeen-year -old Jan tells of how he takes a job at an isolated toll house, in an attempt to stop "trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be".' Into his life come the runaway Adam (for whom Jan is writing his story) and the "high energy girl" Tess (who adds her own comments to Jan's account). As they talk and joke and read and renovate the toll house together, a complex set of relationships develops between Jan, Adam, Tess and (later) Jan's girlfriend Gill. Chambers scatters his clues with meticulous fairness but nonetheless the final denouement is as surprising as in the best detective novels. In The Toll Bridge, however, the mysteries that Jan investigates are as all-encompassing as the reasons for depression, the meaning of names and identity, the consequences of giving and taking gifts and the nature of love (all fifty-seven varieties of it).

This is Chambers writing at his awe-inspiring best, as he draws together four attractive and complex young adults, a provocative range of themes and an easy mixture of narrative modes, to create a novel that is by turns flippant, analytical, playful, erudite and poetic.' JP in Viewpoint

'It is impossible to do justice to this brilliant, complex novel in a few words. The main characters variously seek identity, signified by each using an assumed name. "Janus" leaves home and girlfriend to work as a toll-bridge keeper, a device which permits the use of thematic as well as literal bridges; a fugitive "Adam" proves catalyst to Janus and others. This really is a novel for "young adults" - it is sexually explicit as well as having a disturbing, ground-breaking denouement. Surely one of the most original and rewarding teenage novels of the year - not to be missed.' Linda Newbury in Books for Keeps.

Dutch Silver Pencil Award 1993

First published by Bodley Head 1992

Definitions paperback (with Now I Know), January 2007,

ISBN 978-1-862-30287-7, £6.99

Also see - DE TOLBRUG Dutch language stage adaptation of THE TOLL BRIDGE

All contents are ©Aidan Chambers unless otherwise stated.