About the Book

Book: When the Mountain Crumbled (A Day to Remember Book 4)

Author: Angela K Couch

Genre: Historical Christian Fiction

Release date: September, 2024

Though Mountains Crumble, Hope Is Not Buried

Enjoy a series of 6 exciting novels featuring historic disasters that transformed landscapes and multiple lives. Whether by nature or by man, these disasters changed history and were a day to be remembered.

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 has no choice but to leave 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 brothers to the landslide and require comfort and love while they 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?

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About the Author

To keep from freezing in the great white north, Angela K Couch cuddles under quilts with her laptop. Winning short story contests, being a semi-finalist in ACFW’s Genesis Contest, and a finalist in the 2016 International Digital Awards also helped warm her up. As a passionate believer in Christ, her faith permeates the stories she tells. Her martial arts training, experience with horses, and appreciation for good romance sneak in as well. When not writing, she stays fit (and toasty warm) by chasing after five munchkins.

More from Angela

Around 4:10 am on April 29^th, 1903, approximately 110 million metric tonnes of limestone broke from the side of Turtle Mountain and crashed down into the Crowsnest Valley, burying ranches, camps, an active coal mine, and a part of the town of Frank. What has come to be known as “Frank Slide” was the deadliest landslide in North American recorded history, claiming the lives of more than seventy people.

I first visited Frank Slide as a child, as it is located only an hour’s drive from my home. All I remember from that experience was the heaps of rocks and boulders, and the story of the mine-horse named Charlie. When driving through the Crowsnest Pass as an adult, I began to appreciate the terror of that night and the horrible loss of life. Not until expanding my research while writing this story, did the miracles of Frank shine through everything horrible that happened. That became the focus of my story, When the Mountain Crumbled.

I find our own lives follow a similar pattern. Tragedy, hardship, sickness and disappointment… but do we see the miracles?

My Impressions

“‘Our story doesn’t have to be a tragedy,’ he tried. ‘Yes, there has been a lot of tragedy—I have felt it as keenly as anyone who has lost family and friends. But there is a place for faith and hope as well.’”

This quote, as spoken by Constable Nathan Stanford in When the Mountain Crumbled, by Angela K. Couch, is as valid in real life as in the novel. Truly, coming closer recently to a real-life tragedy than I would like, this story was another reminder of the uncertainty of life. Yet God’s sovereign Hand is providing care and blessings in the midst of a storm.

The “storm” in the book takes place as a rockslide on a mountain, destroying much of a small Canadian mining town in 1903. The town’s uptight, rigid, and uncaring teacher (Samantha Ingles)survives, as do three girls of the large family Samantha is boarding with. One of the Mounties to help in the town’s rescue is the estranged brother of the girls’ father.

At first, there was no love lost between Samantha and Nathan. Each was well-set in their own ways and not interested in the well-being of others. I was hardly interested in their well-being, either! But, slowly, the girls’ needs begin to thaw out hearts that have been closed off to love and hope.

Mary is quite the mature young lady, though only a young girl. Somehow, she takes a shine to both her uncle and Samantha, even as Samantha hands out homework in their time of loss. Mary’s ability to put her emotions into words far exceeds that of the two adults she now must rely on. “To lose so much—to be left alone, And yet somehow, I survive. Now how to live when all is gone, I don’t know how to try.” Oh, my aching heart! Your heart will ache as well, at the tragedy of the town, the future of the Stanford girls, and the ups and downs of the relationship between Nathan and Samantha.

I received a copy of the book from Celebrate Lit and Netgalley. I also bought my own copy. No positive review was required, and all opinions are my own.

Notable Quotables:

“You were not alone. Be still, and know that I am God.”

“Love is a choice.”

“The truth of it? I don’t think she ever wanted me.” Had anyone ever? He’d always been just one more mouth to feed, one more child to discipline. Even now, he was just another constable on the force—one more uniform to order around.”

“Life was a risk, with no guarantee of how much of it you’d get. Don’t waste it.”

“The question was, would she bury her feelings back behind her walls of emotionless candor, or allow herself to heal and help the girls in the process.”