The Day the Falls Stood Still

The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanen
This is a beautiful book!  The sort we so often crave and rarely find.  A tale of  love, courage, honour, bravery, resourcefulness and fear that permeates the bones.  Set in Niagra Falls at the turn of the 20th century when fortunes were made harnessing its power.  Said fortunes were also lost as was the case for our heroine Bess Heath, whose patrician world is turned upside down when her fathers speculation fails.  Much against her still proud parents wishes, she falls in love with the local Riverman, Tim Cole with whom she serepticiously persues a courtship in the most romantic manner I have read in a very long time.  A tragedy at the Falls brings them publicly together and with it, their fate is sealed.  And so ends the first 1/4 of the novel!  World War I plays a role as do environmental concerns versus human convenience (I especially loved how Bess, a seamstress, was ready to sacrifice nature for the sake of an electric iron!!).  This is a debut novel for this writer who I plan to keep my eye on!