Book Chatter

Friday Finds is hosted by Should Be Reading. Here’s my one find:

The Day The Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan

Here’s the blurb from Hyperion’s web site:

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 Niagara Falls. But when she arrives, nothing is as she had 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, her 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 power of the falls for themselves. As their 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.

This one doesn’t come out until August but I saw it while reading my Shelf Awareness newsletter and it really caught my eye. What caught your eye this week?

My Cousin Rachel
By Daphne Du Maurier
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Incorporated
Pub. Date: March 2009
ISBN-13: 9781402217098
394pp

The blurb from Barnes and Noble:

Philip Ashley’s older cousin Ambrose, who raised the orphaned Philip as his own son, has died in Rome. Philip, the heir to Ambrose’s beautiful English estate, is crushed that the man he loved died so far from home. He is also suspicious. While in Italy, Ambrose fell in love with Rachel, a beautiful English and Italian woman. But the final, brief letters Ambrose wrote hint that his love had turned to paranoia and fear.

Now Rachel has arrived at Philip’s newly inherited estate. Could this exquisite woman, who seems to genuinely share Philip’s grief at Ambrose’s death, really be as cruel as Philip imagined? Or is she the kind, passionate woman with whom Ambrose fell in love? Philip struggles to answer this question, knowing Ambrose’s estate, and his own future, will be destroyed if his answer is wrong.

The Short of It:

A very enjoyable read from start to finish.

My Thoughts:

I cannot believe that this book was originally published in 1951! I read Rebecca ages ago and loved it but I had never even heard of My Cousin Rachel until just a few months ago. I’m so glad I did.

This is one of those stories where you sort of know how things will play out, but you continue to turn the pages because the characters are so richly drawn and the evil is almost too subtle to pick up that you feel the need to really focus on every line as some little clue might pop up. I just love these types of stories.

Philip is so utterly taken with Rachel that he is incredibly frustrating at times, but the dynamic between to the two characters is so tightly wound, that you just expect him (or her) to snap at any moment. The descriptive details of the estate itself were quite well written. I felt as if I were walking the grounds myself at times.

In the end, it was an incredibly satisfying read and if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend that you pick up a copy soon. I also cannot say enough about the cover of the re-release. It’s stunning.

I won this copy over at Peeking Between The Pages. Thanks Dar!

Chatting with friends about books and life…