The Printed Page

Title: The Day The Falls Stood Still: A Novel
Author/website(s): Cathy Marie Buchanan
298 pages
Publisher: Voice
Publication date: August ’09
Genre: Fiction
Review book or pleasure reading: Review book
New-to-me author: Yes
Would I recommend this book: DNF’d @ pg. 148
Would I read more from this author: Depending on subject matter/topic
Journal notes: Simply a story that didn’t appeal to me once I started reading.

Set against the backdrop of WWI and Niagara Falls, this debut tells the story of young Bess Heath and her struggle to navigate a quickly modernizing world. A child of privilege, Bess sees her fortunes change when her father loses his job. Cast into poverty, her family disgraced, Bess tries to hold things together while her sister slips into depression, her father drinks and her mother withdraws. After another tragedy strikes, Bess finds comfort in the love of Tom Cole, a river man with a mysterious connection to the falls. Overcoming the deep privation of the war and their own limited means, the two begin building a life together and renew their commitment to each other and their family. Based loosely on the history of Niagara river man William Red Hill, the book incorporates mock newspaper articles with limited success, but does integrate some detailed depictions of domestic life and fascinating natural history into an otherwise uneventful romance.

(The Day The Falls Stood Still was provided to me through a banner ad at Shelf Awareness. I was not paid and this book is being passed along to the another book blogger through Read It Forward )