The Nature of Fragile Things

This book by Susan Meissner is set primarily in and around SanFrancisco in the year leading up and following the earthquake that destroyed most of the city in 1906. Protagonist Sophie Whalen, a young Irish immigrant desperate to escape the tenements of New York City, answers an ad for a mail order bride to a supposedly widowed man with a young daughter. When she arrives, she finds a charismatically handsome man who seems totally uninterested in her, but also his mute child of 5, Katherine (Kat) with whom Sophie falls in love. Sophie has never lived in such a nice house, with enough food to eat but almost no freedom. She is discouraged from making friends with the neighbors by her husband, Martin Hocking; most of the neighbors are wealthier anyway and only one shows interest in Sophie and Kat, although it is more of the condescending rich helping the poor sort of attention. Martin supposedly travels for his work as an insurance assessor and is often gone for days at a time, offering Sophie neither the name of his employer, or a schedule of where and when he will be gone. One night a knock at the door brings Sophie's world to an astounding implosion. A young pregnant woman, Belinda, is looking for her husband, having found Sophie's address in his coat pocket. When she sees Sophie's wedding picture on the mantel, she breaks down, swearing the picture is of her husband, James Bigelow.  Martin/James shows up before dawn the next morning and, when he finds Belinda there, he advances toward the women in a threatening manner. But the earthquake's first tremors start and the world is literally upended. Martin ends up at the bottom of the stairs and Sophie drags him to the kitchen, barely conscious as she, Belinda and Kat endeavor to escape the falling buildings and raging fires. Sophie discovers that Kat's mother is not, in fact, dead, but in a sanitorium in Arizona and she makes the painful decision to reunite the two. When Sophie institutes a missing persons report for her husband six weeks after the quake in order to cover herself, a whole new chain of events threatens to put her in prison. 

Publishers Weekly says "The plucky and principled Sophie (who is hiding a few secrets of her own) captivates from the first page, while naive Belinda and sensitive Kat are standouts. Ingeniously plotted and perfectly structured, this captivates from beginning to end." Booklist calls it "an ultimately uplifting story of strong women and found family."