When the Mountain Crumbled by Angela K Couch

When the Mountain Crumbled
by Angela K Couch

ISBN-13: 9781636099224
Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: Barbour Fiction
Released: September 1, 2024

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from Goodreads:
Discipline and rules are the foundation on which Samantha Ingles has built her life—the life of a spinster schoolteacher in a small mining town in the Canadian Rockies. All that crumbles from her grasp when part of a mountain crashes down on their community.

Constable Nathan Stanford has little patience for the strict schoolmarm but leaves his three young nieces in her care while he tries to discover the fate of his brother. Already, the girls have lost their mother and a brother to the landslide and await the fate of their father, possibly buried in the coal mine.

With the mountain looming over their heads threatening more lives, and the town scrambling to save who they can from the rubble, can hearts find healing—both for their own sakes and the children in their care?


My Review:
When the Mountain Crumbled is Christian fiction set in the Canadian Rockies in 1903. Historical details about the Frank landslide were woven into the story. Beyond the first night, Samantha and the girls showed little trauma from being trapped in the slide and most of the focus was on the loss of family and how their lives changed. I wouldn't call this a romance. Nathan had such distain for Samantha in the first half of the book. He deliberately spent very little time with her or getting to know her until his promise to do so at 95%. Then we abruptly jumped to them being married. I saw no romance.

Nathan spent the first half of the story believing that Samantha had no feelings, so he could treat her cruelly and it wouldn't matter. He repeatedly thought of her as a witch and as looking like a rat. He broke her glasses, told her that he'd get them fixed, then neglected to do so for about a week (leaving her to see the world in a blur). He promised to protect her reputation by not sleeping in her tent with the girls, then did so once against her protests. He pushed her to do things she didn't want to do (like eat half an apple pie), decided things for her without asking her or considering her stated desires, and criticized her for doing her best to take care of the girls while injured and traumatized. He offered her no pay, refused to take over when given leave to do so, and basically avoided taking any responsibility for them.

He asked his siblings to take the girls. But when they showed up, he didn't want them to take the girls anymore mostly because he didn't like his siblings taking charge. Nathan didn't start changing what he thought about Samantha until he'd broken her down into tears with his cruel words (at 58%). Then he thought her not so bad looking after all (without her glasses and with red-rimmed, tear-filled eyes). At 77%, he proposed marriage 'for the sake of the girls' and so he could spite his oldest brother.

Samantha was neglected by her parents and raised in boarding schools, making no lasting friendships and being told to rigidly control her feelings. Even though she's a respectable woman, the men and sometimes women went out of their way (even though she clearly wasn't looking for a husband) to mock her saying no one would ever marry her. Samantha felt lonely, liked the girls, and felt like Nathan was her only prospect for a husband.

The tragedy of the landslide both made Nathan doubt that God cared but also showed that God had a hand in numerous miracles that happened to save people's lives. He struggled with why some people died while others lived. There was no sex or bad language.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.