she's six feet tall and handles a motorbike like a professional. but kate has insecurities that match her height and she ignores the past by pushing her fingers firmly into her ears. who is her mother and why did she abandon her? what became of her grandmother who travelled up the whanganui river on a paddle steamer to an ill-fated valley, beyond the bridge to nowhere? and who was the man she lived with in such an unorthodox way? and what should kate do about her own two-pointed love triangle? somewhere out there are the answers; out where only her motorbike can take her. the strength of eggshells is an emotional journey that explores the lives of strong rural new zealanders, set against the fragile isolation of a farm upbringing, two world wars and a landscape that is inevitably slipping beyond reach.