To Capture What We Cannot Keep

In February 1886, few options are available to a woman without a husband or an inheritance. So when Caitriona Wallace finds herself widowed and impoverished at only 30 years old, she must fend for herself. She accepts a position as a chaperone to two wealthy young Scots, Alice and Jamie Arroll, on a tour of Europe. In Paris, while the Arrolls are quickly seduced by the city's glittering freedom, Cait herself is swept into a relationship unlike any she has known before.

On a hot air balloon ride, she meets Émile Nouguier, a designer of the Eiffel Tower, the most controversial building of its time. Their first encounter is laced with possibility, but back on firm ground, their vastly different social strata are clear. Émile is caught between bourgeois stability and the wild, opium-laced life of the artists on Montmartre. Cait is torn between Émile and the expected norms of propriety. And as the Eiffel Tower rises, a marvel of steel and air and light, the subject of extreme controversy and a symbol of the future, Cait and Émile must decide if their love is worth overthrowing everything.

Seamlessly weaving historical detail and vivid invention, Beatrice Colin evokes the revolutionary time in which Cait and Émile live. To Capture What We Cannot Keep raises probing questions about the weight of societal expectation and the sacrifices love requires of all of us.