The Day The Falls Stood Still
About this ebook
1915. The dawn of the hydroelectric power era in Niagara Falls. Seventeen-year-old Bess Heath has led a sheltered existence as the youngest daughter of the director of the Niagara Power Company. After graduation day at her boarding school, she is impatient to return to her picturesque family home near the falls. But when she arrives, nothing is as she left it. Her father has lost his job at the power company, her mother is reduced to taking in sewing from the society ladies she once entertained, and Isabel, Bess’s vivacious older sister, is a shadow of her former self. She has shut herself in her bedroom, barely eating and harboring a secret.
The night of her return, Bess meets Tom Cole by chance on a trolley platform. She finds herself inexplicably drawn to him against her family’s strong objections. He is not from their world. Rough-hewn and fearless, he lives off what the river provides and has an uncanny ability to predict the whims of the falls. His daring river rescues render him a local hero and cast him as a threat to the power companies that seek to harness the falls for themselves. As the couple’s lives become more fully entwined, Bess is forced to make a painful choice between what she wants and what is best for her family and her future.
Set against the tumultuous backdrop of Niagara Falls, at a time when daredevils shot the river rapids in barrels and great industrial fortunes were made and lost as quickly as lives disappeared, The Day the Falls Stood Still is an intoxicating debut novel.
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About the author
CATHY MARIE BUCHANAN’s work has been translated into nine languages. Her previous novel, The Painted Girls, was a #1 national bestseller in Canada and a New York Times bestseller. Lavished with praise, it was selected as a People pick, included in Entertainment Weekly’s “Must List,” and named a best book of the year by NPR, Good Housekeeping and Goodreads. Her debut novel, The Day the Falls Stood Still, was a New York Times bestseller and is one of the Canada Reads Top 40 Essential Canadian Novels of the Decade. Buchanan holds a BSc (Honours Biochemistry) and an MBA from Western University. Born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario, she now lives in Toronto.Connect with Cathy:WEB: CATHYMARIEBUCHANAN.COMTWITTER: @CATHYMBUCHANANFACEBOOK: FACEBOOK.COM/CATHYMARIEBUCHANAN