The Woman Behind the Waterfall

Heartbreak and transformation in the beauty of a Ukrainian village

For seven-year old Angela, happiness is exploring the lush countryside around her home in western Ukraine. Her wild imagination takes her into birds and flowers, and into the waters of the river.

All that changes when, one morning, she sees her mother crying. As she tries to find out why, she is drawn on an extraordinary journey into the secrets of her family, and her mother's fateful choices.

Can Angela lead her mother back to happiness before her innocence is destroyed by the shadows of a dark past?

Beautiful, poetic and richly sensory, this is a tale that will haunt and lift its readers.

My Review

I had mixed emotions while reading this book. It was an experience all of its own. On one hand I was memorized by the story as if it was part dream and part mystical. At the same time it was for these elements that I struggled at times to stay connected to the story. However, what kept me grounded was the characters...Angela, her mother, and grandmother. There was a strong connection between all of these women.

Angela represented joy. Her mother represented sadness. Her grandmother represented love. As I kept reading this book, the story revealed itself to me and I did not care if I may not have always got the concept of what I was reading but all I knew is that I did like this book. So, I just sat back and enjoyed myself. I loved when Angela and her mother went to town. This was a happy moment. The ending was not too much of a surprise but I can say that it was a fitting one. The Woman Behind the Waterfall is a lovely read!




About the Author:

Leonora Meriel grew up in London and studied literature at the University of Edinburgh and Queen’s University, Ontario. She worked at the United Nations in New York, and then for a multinational law firm.

In 2003 she moved from New York to Kyiv, where she founded and managed Ukraine’s largest Internet company. She received an MBA from Kyiv Mohyla Business School and served as President of the International Women’s Club of Kyiv, a major local charity. During her years in Ukraine, she learned to speak Ukrainian and Russian, witnessed two revolutions and got to know an extraordinary country at a key period of its development.

In 2008, she decided to return to her dream of being a writer, and completed The Woman Behind the Waterfall, set in a village in western Ukraine.

Her second novel The Unity Game, set in New York and London, will be released on May 1 2017.

Leonora lives in Barcelona and London and has two children.

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