About Cascade
• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (August 16, 2012)
1935: In a small town fighting for its survival, a conflicted new wife and promising artist finds herself caught in the eternal tug between duty and desire
Desdemona Hart Spaulding was an up-and-coming Boston artist when she married in haste and settled in the small, once-fashionable theater town of Cascade to provide a home for her dying father. Now Cascade is on the short list to be flooded to provide water for Boston, and Dez’s discontent is complicated by her growing attraction to a fellow artist. When tragic events unfold, Dez is forced to make difficult choices. Must she keep her promises? Is it morally possible to set herself free?
Praise for Cascade:
“What do we have to give up to be whom we yearn to be? Cascade unfolds like a Shakespearean tragedy, with an ending you won’t see coming. Much like a drowned town, the novel becomes something that you can’t take your eyes from or stop thinking about in wonder.” —The Boston Globe
“Gorgeously written and involving, Cascade explores the age-old conflict between a woman’s perceived duty and her deepest desires, but in O’Hara’s skilled hands the struggle feels fresh and new.” —People Magazine, “People Pick”
“O’Hara deftly combines several different themes into a cohesive novel about love, ambition, loyalty, and betrayal, with an ironic twist at the end.” —Library Journal, 2012 “Best Bet”
“I stayed up very late into the night to finish Cascade, captivated by Dez Hart, a woman torn between competing loyalties: her marriage and her freedom, her sense of responsibility and her desire to live an artist’s fiercely disciplined and passionate life. Past and place come alive in this book; these characters are richly drawn and complexly human. Compelling and fascinating, the story unfolds in such unexpected ways, and with such gathering tension, that I couldn’t stop until I’d read the final, beautifully written, line.” —Kim Edwards, New York Times bestselling author of The Memory Keeper’s Daughter
About Maryanne O’Hara
Maryanne O’Hara was the longtime associate fiction editor of Ploughshares, Boston’s award-winning literary journal. Her short fiction has been published in magazines like The North American Review, Five Points, Redbook, and many anthologies. She has received grants from the St. Botolph Foundation and the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and her story collection was a finalist for 2010’s Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. She lives on a river near Boston.
Find out more about Maryanne at her website, read her blog, and connect with her on Facebook.
Maryanne’s Tour Stops
Monday, December 3rd: Booktalk & More
Tuesday, December 4th: Peppermint PhD
Wednesday, December 5th: Savvy Verse & Wit
Friday, December 7th: JulzReads
Monday, December 10th: …the bookworm…
Tuesday, December 11th: Cerebral Girl in a Redneck World
Wednesday, December 12th: Shall Write
Friday, December 14th: A Reader of Fictions
Monday, December 17th: Let Them Read Books
Tuesday, December 18th: Tiffany’s Bookshelf
Wednesday, December 19th: I’m Booking It
Monday, December 24th: Dreaming in Books
Wednesday, December 26th: Broken Teepee
Thursday, December 27th: Books and Movies
Saturday, December 31st: Book Journey
Wednesday, January 2nd: Lisa’s Yarns
Thursday, January 3rd: Dwell in Possibility
Friday, January 4th: A Bookish Way of Life