His wife, Adelaide, threatens Frances but she tricks Leo into taking her to an abandoned mine where she seduces him. Frances sets up an elaborate plot to seduce Leo and become pregnant by him. She spies Leo Taylor, Kathleen's former driver, working with James and decides he must be the father of Kathleen's children. Frances is expelled from school and winds up working at a speakeasy run by her uncle Jameel. Mercedes graduates from high school but stays home instead of going away to college. Frances and Lily spend hours playing together and Frances tells Lily stories about Ambrose, her twin brother who died and is now her guardian angel. Lily is being passed off as James' and Materia's child. Two days after Kathleen is buried, Materia dies as well, leaving Mercedes to help James raise Frances and Lily. The daughter, Lily, survives but contracts polio. Nine months later, she dies while giving birth to twins.įrances takes the newborn babies and baptizes them in the creek, only to have one baby, a boy, drown. After several months in New York, Kathleen falls in love and James finds out by way of an anonymous letter. When he returns from the front, he sends Kathleen to New York and has her stay with Giles, a spinster cousin. He enlists in the military and is shipped overseas to France.

After beating Kathleen and then becoming aroused by her, James decides to leave home until Kathleen is old enough to go to New York for voice lessons. They have two more daughters, Mercedes and Frances, who bond much more easily with Materia. Materia feels no motherly love for Kathleen, no matter how much she tries, and worries about the amount of attention James pays to their daughter. He quickly devotes a lot of time in preparing her to become a famous singer. James grows enchanted with his young daughter and her singing ability. They move into a home and quickly have their first child, Kathleen. The two fall in love and elope, much to the dismay of Materia's father, who disowns her. James meets Materia Mahmoud when he goes to fix her family's piano. James' obsession with his eldest child Kathleen affects the entire family for many years to come. Based in a small Canadian town in the late 1800s through the mid-twentieth century, the novel tells the story of the relationships between the father James, his wife Materia, and their three daughters, Kathleen, Mercedes, and Frances. Fall on Your Knees is the story of the Piper family.

Fall on your knees novel