Pages & Provenance Book Club

The Niagara Falls History Museum and Public Library are teaming up to bring historical fiction off the page and into your hands! Each evening begins with a traditional book club discussion of the selected historical novel. Next Museum staff will take you behind the scenes with real artefacts and objects from the Museum’s collection connected to the time period or culture discussed in the book. You’ll get to see, explore, and even handle pieces of history while uncovering the fascinating connections between fiction and the real past. And because every good book deserves a good drink, each session includes an alcoholic beverage or mocktail. Come ready to read, chat, sip, and get hands-on with the past. Dates January 7, February 4, March 4, April 1, May 6 & June 3 (First Thursday of the Month) 7-8:30pm Cost $75 6-week Session – includes all 6 dates, with a beverage each evening Please note each attendee is responsible for sourcing their own copy of the books. A limited number of books are available to borrow through the Niagara Falls Public Library (including physical copies, e-books and audiobooks through Hoopla and CloudLibrary). Books & Schedule January 7 The Day The Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan (Local Author) February 4 In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas March 4 The Paris Deception by Bryn Turnbull April 1 The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner May 6 Daughters of the Deer by Danielle Daniel June 3 Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue Book Descriptions: The Day The Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan (Local Author) • Seventeen-year-old Bess Heath has led a sheltered existence as the daughter of the director of the Niagara Power Company. After graduating from boarding school she is impatient to return to her family home near Niagara Falls. Nothing is as she had left it. In the Upper Country by Kai Thomas (One book One Niagara winner 2024) • Set in the Black communities of Ontario that were the last stop on the Underground Railroad.This book explores the fates of two women—one just beginning a journey of self-discovery and the other completing her life's last vital act. The Paris Deception by Bryn Turnbull • With the help of her sister-in-law, Sophie, an employee at the Jeu de Paume Museum in Paris, steals looted masterpieces from the Nazis and replaces them with forgeries in an effort to save the works from destruction. The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner • The Lost Apothecary is a dual timeline narrative set in the 1700s and the present day, about a secret apothecary that sells well-disguised poisons to use against the oppressive men in their lives Daughters of the Deer by Danielle Daniel • In this haunting and groundbreaking historical novel, Danielle Daniel imagines the lives of women in the Algonquin territories of the 1600s, a story inspired by her family’s ancestral link to a young girl who was murdered by French settlers. Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue • Learned by Heart, Emma Donoghue’s mesmerising new novel, tells the heartbreaking story of the tangled lives of two women whose intense, and unlikely, relationship will change them forever.