Celestina spends the summer with her parents and her older sister, Estrella, at the Lake Conemaugh resort. Not really a lake, but a reservoir held back by an earthen dam, Celestina loves her summers spent reading in the woods and swimming in the lake, even though it isn't really proper for wealthy young ladies to spend so much time alone (or swimming!).Peter lives with his father in Johnstown, a shanty town below the Lake Conemaugh dam mostly inhabited by poor coal miners. Even though his father doesn't want him mixing with the wealthy vacationers at the lake resort, Peter decides to work at the hotel for one last summer in the sun. When he comes across Celestina reading in the woods by the lake, he knows she's something special. By the end of the summer, they're deeply in love, even though they have to keep it a secret from everyone.
The following spring, heavy rains have filled Lake Conemaugh to bursting. When Celestina returns to the resort with her father and finds Peter no longer employed by the hotel, she sets out to Johnstown to find him. But the dam can't hold much longer - and it doesn't. It only takes a few horrible minutes for the lake to empty, sending millions of tons of water with the force of Niagara Falls into the valley below - the valley where Peter and his father live.
Think Dirty Dancing crossed with Susan Beth Pfeffer, in verse, and you've got Three Rivers Rising! Set against the Johnstown Flood that really occurred in May of 1889, this debut novel in verse is a quick, intense read. Drawn in by the star-crossed romance between Celestina and Peter, the inevitable fate of the dam and the town below loom large and threatening. Fans of forbidden love and disaster stories, check this one out @ the library!
Megan
(re-reading Eclipse so I can write the trivia for the Eclipse Extravaganza in June!)
Comments