Book Review - Three Rivers Rising: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood by Jame Richards

This might just be the first book I've read so far for BFYA that has really surprised and moved me; I just loved the experience of reading it that much.  I've become a big fan of verse novels lately.  Maybe it's because I can get away with reading several verse novels in the span of a few hours, or maybe it's because some of them are just extraordinarily well-written.  This one certainly was.

In late 19th century, upstream from Johnstown, PA, there was a fancy mountain resort, attracting all the tycoons and high society types of the day.  (Think: the fancy rich people in first class on the Titanic.)  There we find teenage Celestia, our Rose Dewitt, if you will, well-breed and primed for cotillion next year.  One day out at the lake she meets Peter, a young man from downstream working-class Johnstown, who works at the hotel (and our Jack).  

Yes, my friends, this is a love story.  And like Titanic, it's set against the backdrop of an extraordinary disaster: the Johnstown Flood of 1889, which took the lives of just over 2,000 people.  Prior to 9/11, this was one of the biggest civilian disasters in the history of the United States.  Part survival story, part love story, you'll find it hard not to race through the pages as the water overflows the dam (which created the lake at the fancy resort) and the huge wave barrels down the river, affecting town after town on its way to Johnstown, where the most casualties occurred.

This is Jame Richards's debut novel, and I can tell you that I will be for sure running out to read her next book when it hits the shelves.  This a brilliant, exciting, heart-pounding story that will easily appeal to fans of Titanic style disaster-love stories, but so many others.  Definitely one of my top favorites from the 2010 publishing cycle.