Historical Fiction
The year is 1915. Bess Heath is brought home from private school for the summer to learn of her father's dismissal from the Niagara Power Company. Her mother now takes in sewing in order to feed the family. Bess's sister Isabel is a former shell of her vivacious self, having been dumped by her fiancee.
On the way home from boarding school Bess meets Tom Cole who helps her and her mother with her trunk. Bess is drawn to Tom but he is not of their social strata and therefore unsuitable. Tom is a riverman. He understands the river and its vagaries. He becomes a local hero in performing several daring river rescues. Tom hates what the power companies are doing to the river.
This story weaves the Niagara River around the lives of Tom and Bess. It is simply a wonderful read. The history of World War I and the start-up of electric power at Niagara Falls was fascinating to read about. There were several times I had to tell other people what I had just learned. Did you know.....?
The Niagara River is a big part of the book and almost seems like an additional character. Buchanan has written a wonderful piece of Canadian historical fiction. I live near to Niagara Falls and can only wonder if double the water were to be flowing down the river what the falls would look like today! Loved, loved, loved it!!!
First Line: "The stone walls of Loretto Academy are so thick I can sit curled up on a windowsill, arms around the knees tucked beneath my chin."
Rating: 
(4.5/5)
The quiet town of Wrightsburg, Virgina is rocked by a serial killer on the loose. The killing of each victim is made to represent a past notorious serial killer, including the Zodiac Killer. Ex-Secret Service agents Sean King and Michelle Maxwell help the police and FBI track the killer and try to catch him before he kills again. All the killings don't quite seem to fit the MO of the killer though. Are there multiple killers? What are the motives? How can Sean and Michelle stop more people from being hurt?
Elizabeth I is queen and in love with Robin Dudley when she receives a diary written by her mother, Anne Boleyn. Anne Boleyn changed the course of English history.
Jennifer Spencer, financial whiz, agrees to take the 'rap' for her fiancee Tom on insider trading charges. Tom has agreed to make appeals and get her out quickly and in the meantime she will be at a country club jail. Not so!! Tom is a rat and soon Jennifer, besides being dumped is at Jennings Correctional Facility in an orange jumpsuit. Jennifer is rich, spoiled and self-absorbed.
It's the height of the siege on Sarajevo and Galloway tells the story of three different people living in the city and how war affects their life. Kenan's story is about how troublesome it is to get water in a city under fire. At every intersection, Kenan fears for his life and sees others die as they are picked off by snipers in the hill. Kenan gets water for himself and his elderly neighbour and is upset by what his city has become. 
Snow Country is a novel about the three visits of Shimamura, a wealthy man of leisure to a hot springs mountain resort on the western side of Japan. It is spring the first time and he meets a local geisha, Komako. She is reluctant to be a geisha but feels she needs a 'protector'. Komako is immature, chatty and highly emotional.
This book starts off with a plane crash in the Wyoming Rockies during a snowstorm. On board is Jo O'Connor and some Native Americans on their way to a meeting. Cork O'Coonor, husband of Jo is unwilling to just sit and wait for news. He decides to go to Casper, Wyoming with his 13 year old son, Steven in tow, to find his wife. Because he is a retired sheriff, he is given the full co-operation of the police and search personnel. Following a vision by an Arapaho Indian, he flies over Heaven's Keep, a desolate and forbidding area. Finding nothing he returns home.
Whether you've read this book or not, chances are you know what the story is about. Hester Prynne wears a scarlet letter on her chest as punishment for Adultery. She was sent over to New England before her husband, had an affair with an unknown member of society, and ended up with child. She wears the letter on her chest every day and her daughter, Pearl, sees this as normal. 
Just as Jacob Jankowski is to sit his final veterinary exams at Cornell, he learns that his parents have been killed and he is penniless. He jumps aboard a passing train and finds himself in the circus world. The time period is the 1930s and it is a time of struggle. The circus rolls into town, sets up and goes on to the next town. It is a place for misfits, drifters, freaks and people who don't fit in.