When Trees Fall (The Wood and Water Saga)

Book One of the Wood and Water Saga

Inspired by a true story: a sweeping Caribbean family saga about the secrets we keep and the lines we'll cross for love.

Jamaica, 1944. World War II is winding down, and a seaside village is preparing for the island's first general election.

Cailin Campbell is a naïve, adventure-seeking girl growing up in a Jamaican Great House. Archie Price is a teenage boy with a chip on his shoulder. Sharpe is a young man with divided loyalties, living as an outsider in a poor hillside village. Yet all three long for the same thing: a father's approval.

But the man who has the power to give it to them won't... or can't. His estate workers call him a tyrant and whisper that he once murdered one of their own. His family walks on eggshells whenever he comes home drunk from visits with his mistress. As Cailin, Archie, and Sharpe chase the love they've been denied, their unfulfilled desires spiral into rejection, mistaken affections, and murder.

Told from three points of view, in both Standard English and Jamaican Patois, When Trees Fall is an immersive historical novel set in colonial Jamaica. It's a story about fathers and children, class and loyalty, and the cost of family secrets.

Taught in college literature courses, it's a rich choice for book clubs and classrooms. For readers who loved East of Eden, Small Island, or The Pirate's Daughter.

Dale Mahfood was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to parents whose roots run deep into the island's past. He has lived in London, England, and up and down the U.S. Eastern Seaboard, from New England to Florida, where he earned a master's degree in English Education from Florida International University. These experiences, along with a long career in education, have fueled his passion for writing about diverse peoples and places.Before retiring to write full-time, Dale taught literature at the college level, where his own novel became part of the curriculum. He is also co-founder of the Jamaica Brew Festival, a South Florida celebration of Jamaican literature and film, and served as its Literary Program Coordinator in 2024 and 2025.His first novel, When Trees Fall, is Book One of the Wood and Water Saga, a series inspired by a true story from his family's history. He is currently writing Book Two, Up From Mountains. Dale lives in South Florida with his wife, Janet. He has two grown daughters, Mary and CeCe, and a grandson.