Fall on Your Knees

Winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, Fall On Your Knees is an epic, emotionally charged novel that follows the complex lives of the Piper family across the first half of the twentieth century. Beginning on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia and stretching to the battlefields of World War I and the jazz clubs of New York City, the story centers on four unforgettable sisters — Kathleen, Frances, Mercedes, and Lily — each shaped by ambition, secrecy, faith, and longing. At the heart of the family stands James Piper and his young Lebanese bride, Materia, whose marriage casts a long and haunting shadow over their daughters’ lives.

Layered with themes of race, religion, forbidden love, trauma, and redemption, the novel unfolds through shifting perspectives and generations. Dark yet often unexpectedly humorous, MacDonald’s storytelling weaves together history and myth, tragedy and resilience. Sweeping in scope and intimate in its emotional insight, Fall On Your Knees remains a powerful exploration of family bonds and the enduring consequences of hidden truths.

Paperback, Very Good