When Trees Fall

Book One of the Wood and Water Saga

Inspired by a true story: a sweeping Caribbean family saga about the secrets we keep and the lines we'll cross for love.

Jamaica, 1944. World War II is winding down, and a seaside village is preparing for the island's first general election.

Cailin Campbell is a naïve, adventure-seeking girl growing up in a Jamaican Great House. Archie Price is a teenage boy with a chip on his shoulder. Sharpe is a young man with divided loyalties, living as an outsider in a poor hillside village. Yet all three long for the same thing: a father's approval.

But the man who has the power to give it to them won't… or can't. His estate workers call him a tyrant and whisper that he once murdered one of their own. His family walks on eggshells whenever he comes home drunk from visits with his mistress. As Cailin, Archie, and Sharpe chase the love they've been denied, their unfulfilled desires spiral into rejection, mistaken affections, and murder.

Told from three points of view, in both Standard English and Jamaican Patois, When Trees Fall is an immersive historical novel set in colonial Jamaica. It's a story about fathers and children, class and loyalty, and the cost of family secrets.

Taught in college literature courses, it's a rich choice for book clubs and classrooms. For readers who loved East of Eden, Small Island, or The Pirate's Daughter.